In 2026, scientists gave bumblebees a puzzle they had never seen before; some invented their own way to reach a hidden reward

More than a century ago, psychologist Wolfgang Köhler conducted experiments that changed how scientists thought about animal intelligence. In one of his best-known demonstrations, chimpanzees were faced with food placed out of reach and objects they could potentially use to obtain it. Rather than simply repeating familiar actions, some animals appeared to recognise how the objects could be combined to solve a problem they had not previously encountered. The experiments became a classic example of insight-like problem solving, a behaviour often associated with animals possessing relatively large and complex brains. Now, researchers from the University of Oulu, the University of Helsinki and the University of Turku in Finland have found surprisingly flexible problem solving in an animal with a brain tiny by comparison: the bumblebee. The insects were given an unfamiliar task involving a ball and a reward, without being shown how the two were connected.