Some people are quick to uncritically accept stories of amazing or surprising animal abilities and behaviours and tend to ascribe human characteristics and motivation to such behaviour. I think that taking a skeptical look at anthropomorphism is important (especially since it is anthropocentric) and that we should examine individual cases critically. Heres a video of bumblebee “rescuing” another bee from a spider web. At least thats the way its described in the video. But Professor of Biology Dave Goulson explains (theconversation/no-thats-not-a-video-of-a-bee-rescuing-its-friend-from-a-spider-28020) that what the video actually shows is a second bee comes crashing in, falls on its back and thrashes around a bit. As the second bee flails around on its back, it looks in one frame as if it stings the spider. In fact, what one can see is the rear leg of the bee which happens to line up with the tip of the abdomen for a moment. It is too long and thick for a bee sting. So this is not a noble, brave act, as much as we might like it to be. https://youtube/watch?v=Zs_3FHh3z4o
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 21:45:43 +0000
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