Hopeless, Racist Wasps

“Individually, each wasp flew from the bottom of the T to the fork, where they could view an image on either side before picking one to touch. One of the two images delivered a mild and unpleasant shock. For each pair of images, wasps had 40 chances to learn which was a safer bet. When wasps were shown two distinct wasp faces, it only took about 10 trials before they learned to consistently choose the right one, the researchers report today in the journal Science. For the next 30 trials, they picked right about 75 to 80 percent of the time. The insects were eventually able to perform as well when shown two different black shapes on a white background, but it took them a lot longer. It wasn’t until close to the end of 40 trials that they were scoring right with the same success rate. When asked to distinguish between caterpillars, the wasps were hopeless.”
 — What a surprise. To wasps, all caterpillars look the same. Besides explaining everything about the history of America and the Ivy League, this study, conducted at the University of Michigan’s evolutionary biology department, indicates that the “need to distinguish between faces has driven the evolution” of species that have been on the planet much longer than mammals and humans.