Lars Chittka

We are looking for a Postdoc (up to 5 years) who wants to study neural mechanisms of spatial memory in honeybees.

This includes tetrode recordings in behaving honeybees.

Application Deadline is 1st of October 2025.

More details:
www.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/en/services/...

📚 Have a read of my latest book review about two amazing and inspiring books: Stephen Buchmann's What a Bee Knows? and Lars Chittka’s The Mind of a Bee. 🐝
🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
@larschittka.bsky.social @islandpress.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social

Thinking like a bee - Community Ecology Community Ecology -

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!

I was moved beyond words to receive the Exemplar Award from the President of the Animal Behavior Society @animbehsociety.bsky.social, Prof Emily DuVal. Thank you!!! 🥹

Important new paper by Luigi Baciadonna, Eleonora Rovegno, Giulia Bigazzi & David Baracchi: pronounced interindivual variation in delay gratification in bumblebees! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bees Could Teach AI How To Better Recognize Patterns A new discovery of how bees use their flight movements to facilitate remarkably accurate learning and recognition of complex visual patterns could mark a major change in how next-generation AI is deve...

www.technologynetworks.com/applied-scie...

Bumblebees prefer shorter over longer strings and connected over disconnected ones in string‐pulling tasks but prioritize connectivity over spatial proximity when the two are in conflict We investigated how bumblebees balance efficiency and accessibility in string-pulling tasks. When given strings of different lengths attached to rewards, they consistently chose the shorter one. They...

New paper: Bumblebees prefer shorter over longer strings and connected over disconnected ones in string‐pulling tasks but prioritize connectivity over spatial proximity when the two are in conflict: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Thank you! ☺️

www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/06/lars...

Our new paper in eLife: A neuromorphic model of active vision shows how spatiotemporal encoding in lobula neurons can aid pattern recognition in bees: elifesciences.org/articles/89929

New study revealing bees' secret to super-efficient learning could revolutionise AI and robotics A new discovery of how bees use their flight movements to facilitate remarkably accurate learning & recognition of complex visual patterns could mark a major change in how next-generation AI is develo...

Our latest paper reveals how active vision via scanning dynamically refines spatiotemporal neural representations, enabling efficient pattern recognition in minimal systems.

A step forward in understanding embedded cognition & AI
www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/new-stu... #bee #ActiveVision #Neuromorphic

Charles H. Turner, pioneer in animal cognition An African American scientist's early discoveries are forgotten for all the wrong reasons

In the session's first talk, Lars Chittka from Queen Mary London, reviews the history of the debate whether invertebrates show signs of cognition, and introduces some key players such as Charles Turner.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@larschittka.bsky.social

Big congratulations to our team's Jasmin Richter, who won "best talk" at the London Interdisciplinary Doctoral Programme presentation day today!

The Mind of a Bee: An Exploration of the Intelligence of Bees Delve into the mind of a bee with Prof Lars Chittka (Queen Mary College of the University of London) and explore how bee brains are unparalleled in the animal kingdom.

It's #InsectWeek 2025! The celebration's learning resources include @larschittka.bsky.social's entoLIVE webinar on bee intelligence. 🐝 Learn how they recognize faces, exhibit emotions, use tools, and more.

@Royentsoc.bsky.social‬

François Huber (1814; translation by Dadant) on the possibility that insects' perceptual world is wholly different from humans'. How extraordinary that he would have surmised this almost 70 years before John Lubbock's empirical demonstrations of ultraviolet sensitivity in ants!

Looking forward to speaking at the the Sacramento Area Beekeepers Association tomorrow: sacbeekeepers.org

Our string-pulling honeybees on TV for the first time! Amongst a lot of other interesting bee information, we're at minute 33:30 in The Secret Life of Bees (Channel 5): www.channel5.com/show/the-sec...

Biologie: Können Insekten Schmerz empfinden? Lange galten Insekten als kleine Roboter. Doch das Bild wandelt sich: Insekten treffen Entscheidungen, manche Art hat Persönlichkeit. Fühlen sie auch Schmerz?

Eine Radiosendung ueber unsere Forschung zur Frage des Schmerzempfindens bei Insekten im Deutschlandsfunk: www.deutschlandfunk.de/made-im-schm...

Passionate about research on biological and artificial minds? @preparedmindslab.bsky.social at @queenmarycbb.bsky.social is hiring!
We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher interested in modelling and animal
Cognition qmul-jobs.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...
write me for informal inquiries 🐣👾🤖

"... species are ultimately a human construct..." ouch

Hahaha this is quite wonderful: "The inconspicuous but indefatigable rise of behaviorism was
more of a barbarian invasion than a revolution"

First evidence of an anxiety-like behavior and its pharmacological modulation in a molluscan model organism, Lymnaea stagnalis - Translational Psychiatry Translational Psychiatry - First evidence of an anxiety-like behavior and its pharmacological modulation in a molluscan model organism, Lymnaea stagnalis

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Memory and the scheduling of parental care in an insect population in the wild Field et al. show that, in the wild, digger wasps use integrated memories to schedule offspring care. As well as remembering the locations of up to 9 separate nests, they feed offspring in order of ag...

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Fun to give a presentation at the interestingly named Mile Hive Bee Club in Denver, Colorado, today

French translation of the Mind of a Bee out May 22 - preorder here: www.quae.com/produit/1945...

Natural History magazine: Agustín Fuentes rejects the sex binary on ideological grounds, but pretends otherwise It looks like Natural History magazine has given an implicit endorsement—or at least a platform—to Princeton anthropology professor Agustín Fuentes.  We’ve met him before, and not under pleas…

Princeton anthropologist Agustín Fuentes once again tries to convince the public (this time in Natural History) that sex is not binary. He offers no new arguments and fails once again.

whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/05/02/n...

Had a stimulating discussion after my presentation for the Long Beach Beekeepers' Association (California) today

Haha me neither 😊