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Even honeybees can tell diffrence between even and odd numbers 

New DelhiEdited By: Manas JoshiUpdated: May 01, 2022, 05:06 PM IST
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Honeybees. Representative image Photograph:(Heather Mattila © 2021 The New York Times Company )

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It has been found that honeybees can differentiate between even and odd numbers and do that by associating this ability with something

Even and odd numbers are fairly simple right? Numbers fully divisible by 2 are called even numbers (2,4,6,...). Rest are called odd numbers (1,3,5,7,....). Learning this fact was quick and easy for us. But apparently, learning to differentiate between even and odd numbers (parity association) is apparently a fairly high mathematical ability.

Humans demonstrate accuracy, speed, language, and spatial relationship biases when categorizing numbers as odd or even. There has been observed an innate ability in humans to associate even numbers with right hand and odd with the left.

It has been found that honeybees can differentiate between even and odd numbers and do that by associating this ability with something. This has been found in a research published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

In their experiment, the scientists divided honeybees into two groups. One group of honeybees was taught to associate even numbers with sugar water and odd number with quinine, a bitter testing liquid.

The second group was taught to associated odd numbers with sugar water and even numbers with quinine.

Then the groups were taught odd and even numbers (1-10) by using respective number of shapes.

It was found that the group of bees that was taught to associate odd numbers learnt quickly than the other group. Hence, the learning bias was found to be opposite to that of humans.

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Manas Joshi

Manas Joshi is a digital journalist. Though mainly a news junkie, he likes to ardently believe that his varied interests keep him in opportune position to write aviewMore