Lars Chittka

This is a fascinating examination of everything we currently know about how bees' minds work. Chittka explains how bees senses work, especially their vision, which is very different from ours, to get an idea of how bees process the world around them. He describes many of the studies that have been done to test bees' cognitive abilities, including their ability to communicate with each other, build mental maps of the world for navigation, make decisions as a group, learn from experience, and make reasoned decisions about what actions are most likely to yield rewards. I appreciate that Chittka not only describes what we know about bee cognition, but also goes into detail about the studies that have been done to give us this understanding. He also offers little mini-biographies of some of the scientists who have studied bees over the past two centuries, which are often pretty interesting. The book makes some very complex topics, such as the structure of a bee's brain, surprisingly accessible. This is a fascinating and engaging read about a really interesting topic.… (altro)