Queensland Brain Institute and School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
Annu Rev Entomol. 2010;55:267-84. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ento.010908.164537.
Among the so-called simpler organisms, the honey bee is one of the few examples of an animal with a highly evolved social structure, a rich behavioral repertoire, an exquisite navigational system, an elaborate communication system, and an extraordinary ability to learn colors, shapes, fragrances, and navigational routes quickly and accurately. This review examines vision and complex visually mediated behavior in the honey bee, outlining the structure and function of the compound eyes, the perception and discrimination of colors and shapes, the learning of complex tasks, the ability to establish and exploit complex associations, and the capacity to abstract general principles from a task and apply them to tackle novel situations. All this is accomplished by a brain that weighs less than a milligram and carries fewer than a million neurons, thus making the bee a promising subject in which to study a variety of fundamental questions about behavior and brain function.
在所谓的简单生物体中，蜜蜂是少数具有高度进化的社会结构、丰富的行为 repertoire、精湛的导航系统、精细的通讯系统以及非凡的快速准确学习颜色、形状、气味和导航路线能力的动物之一。本文综述了蜜蜂的视觉和复杂的视觉介导行为，概述了复眼的结构和功能、颜色和形状的感知和辨别、复杂任务的学习、建立和利用复杂联想的能力以及从任务中抽象出一般原则并将其应用于解决新情况的能力。所有这些都是由一个重量不到一毫克、神经元数量不到 100 万的大脑完成的，因此蜜蜂是研究行为和大脑功能的各种基本问题的有前途的对象。
