Unlearned visual preferences by flower naive bumblebees

<p>Poster presentation at CSBBCS 2010</p> <p><strong>Abstract</strong>. The purpose of the experiment was to explore the visual pattern preferences of bumblebees (Bombus impatiens). Untrained, flower-naive, bumblebees were presented with an artificial flower pattern. The patterns were radial or concentric lines presented either on the periphery or center of the flower. Every individual in a colony received a 1x1mm radio-identification (RFID) tag, and choices were tracked through RFID readers built into the artificial flowers. The first choice of each exploring bumblebee was recorded as its initial preference. Contrary to previous findings, we found non-significant preference for radial patterns. More importantly, central location of any pattern on the flower was significantly preferred over peripheral patterns.