If they can conceive of zero being a number, they will be the first invertebrates able to do so. (I would be surprised if relatively-brilliant octopuses couldn't do it, but they apparently haven't been tested. I'm convinced that octupuses are the smartest invertebrates, comparable to many mammals.)
An Australian researcher created motivators for the bees (a sweet sucrose solution that they like and a nasty-tasting quinine solution that they detest).
Then the researcher put positive and negative feeders along with groups of symbols, always associating sugar with fewer symbols and the nasty stuff with more. (Apparently bees operate visually more than by smell, as the effectiveness of bright flowers in attracting them illustrates.
The bees eventually learned the setup and went for the smaller number of symbols more than 80% of the time. That's already interesting, suggesting that they can cognize 'greater' and 'less'.
The new thing here arose from putting the feeder full of nasty stuff next to one symbol and the sugar feeder without any symbols. The bees still went for the sugar. So they were apparently aware that no symbols was less than one symbol. It's even difficult for human babies to get their minds around treating zero as a number.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/214...ncept-of-z
An Australian researcher created motivators for the bees (a sweet sucrose solution that they like and a nasty-tasting quinine solution that they detest).
Then the researcher put positive and negative feeders along with groups of symbols, always associating sugar with fewer symbols and the nasty stuff with more. (Apparently bees operate visually more than by smell, as the effectiveness of bright flowers in attracting them illustrates.
The bees eventually learned the setup and went for the smaller number of symbols more than 80% of the time. That's already interesting, suggesting that they can cognize 'greater' and 'less'.
The new thing here arose from putting the feeder full of nasty stuff next to one symbol and the sugar feeder without any symbols. The bees still went for the sugar. So they were apparently aware that no symbols was less than one symbol. It's even difficult for human babies to get their minds around treating zero as a number.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/214...ncept-of-z