Sep 2, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Size, it turns out, is not everything when it comes to insect vision. According to a new paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy...

Aug 27, 2026 by Natali Anderson

In a new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) exposed to a brood-killing fungus shifted...

Jul 13, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Slow-motion video reveals that buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) respond to sweet and bitter tastes with distinct, context-dependent behaviors...

Nov 17, 2025 by News Staff

Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) can decide where to forage for food based on different durations of visual cues, according to new research. The...

Mar 5, 2025 by News Staff

Biologists at the University of Exeter have conducted the first large-scale study of the diet of the Asian hornet (Vespa velutina), utilizing deep sequencing...

Mar 8, 2024 by News Staff

Culture refers to behaviors that are socially learned and persist within a population over time. Increasing evidence suggests that animal culture can,...

Oct 5, 2023 by News Staff

Scientists from the University of Exeter have investigated the effects of invasive Asian hornets (Vespa velutina nigrithorax) — which are considered...

Oct 28, 2022 by Natali Anderson

New research led by Queen Mary University of London shows that rolling of wooden balls by buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) fulfils behavioral...

Oct 17, 2022 by News Staff

New research led by China’s Southern Medical University suggests that bumblebees are only able to make use of ordinal ranking memories to guide foraging...

Aug 3, 2022 by News Staff

Insects are traditionally thought to respond to noxious stimuli in an inflexible manner, without the ability to modulate their behavior according to context....

Nov 25, 2021 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Jiangnan University, Queen Mary University of London and the University of Oulu has identified a causal link between an increased...

Jul 29, 2021 by News Staff

Caffeine is a widely occurring plant defense chemical that occurs in the nectar of some plants, e.g., coffee and citrus, where it may influence pollinator...

Jun 23, 2021 by News Staff

Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) are able to use differences in floral humidity to distinguish between rewarding and non-rewarding flowers, according...

May 6, 2021 by News Staff

By leaving the colony earlier to find and exploit flowers in low light, larger-sized foragers of the buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) are aided...

Jul 29, 2020 by News Staff

Buzzing by buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris audax) workers during pollen foraging is much more powerful than that used for defense or flight, according...

Dec 12, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Stirling and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in the UK has demonstrated that simulated Chernobyl-levels...

May 29, 2018 by News Staff

Although using flashy colors as camouflage may seem counterintuitive, iridescence obstructs the bumblebee’s ability to identify shape, according to a...

Oct 5, 2016 by News Staff

String pulling is a popular problem-solving task for investigating cognitive abilities in apes and birds, but has never been tested in insects. Now, buff-tailed...

May 31, 2016 by News Staff

Mechanosensory hairs may explain how bumblebees sense electric signals transmitted by flowers, says a team of scientists at the University of Bristol,...

Jun 9, 2015 by News Staff

A new study published online in the journal PLoS ONE has found significant contamination of bumblebee pupae by the metal aluminum — a known neurotoxin...