These bumblebees are rolling balls... are they playing?

To reach the food, the bumblebees have a clear passage. Next to it are small wooden balls. They might ignore them. However, many people approach them and make them roll, sometimes many times.

The researchers designed the experiment to rule out simple explanations: getting a food reward, clearing the path or responding to a constraint. The observed behavior meets the criteria used in the study to talk about play with objects.

This does not allow to read in the head of a bumblebee or to attribute to it exactly the pleasure of a child. But the observation moves a border. An insect can devote time to an activity that is not reduced, in this situation, to looking for food. Small balls complicate a big idea: that of an animal governed solely by utilitarian tasks.