Bees can do math and understand zero

Bees can do basic math and understand zero. Researchers at RMIT trained honeybees to choose images with fewer or more shapes, then add or subtract one. Bees learned to fly to the correct answer for a sugar reward, scoring 64-72%. They even grasped zero as less than one, a concept human children learn around age 4. With only 960,000 neurons versus our 86 billion, bees use efficient circuits. It suggests math does not need a big brain, just the right wiring. A pollinator that can also do arithmetic in flight.