You shouldn’t always trust appearances. In science, even less so than elsewhere. Take Lars Chittka for example: with his long white beard, ponytail and black suit and rocker vibe, the researcher from Queen Mary University of London would happily pass for an original. “If playing guitar in a post-punk band, performing on stage at scientific conferences and daring to loudly expound theories that others barely think about is being original, then yes, it is original.says his old friend Martin Giurfa, a professor at the Sorbonne University and, like him, a specialist in bee cognition. But if you look at his science, it is extremely rigorous. Imaginative, surprising, daring, never eccentric.
The same goes for his publications. No major journal is missing from the list of more than 250 articles he has written over the years. As of April, he is still on the list. Nature who announced that bumblebees practice what until now seemed reserved for humans, “cumulative social learning,” that is, the ability to innovate based on skills developed by another human being.
At 61, Lars Chittka can boast of having raised the reputation of drones to the highest level. From colour perception to navigation, from counting ability to the pleasure of playing, from tool use to consciousness, he has continued to reveal the extent of the cognitive abilities of animals. “For a long time we have neglected the individual intelligence of bees, regrets. What could this tiny brain and its millions of neurons produce? On the contrary, we marvel at their collective intelligence. And I must admit that it was when I myself stuck my nose into a beehive that I became interested in this very peculiar world. I never went out again. And yet, until then, nothing predestined me to dedicate my life to these insects.
“Scientific suicide”
Raised in a small town in the north of what was then called West Germany, the rebellious young high school student quickly shied away from science. He dreams of literature, music and travel. Moreover, it was from North Africa that he agreed, during a quick telephone conversation with his mother, to enroll in biology. Here he is at the University of Göttingen. “You know, apart from Barbara’s song, it’s a deeply boring city. » He finds Berlin, its city centre and its alternative cultural scene attractive. “My supervisor told me it was scientific suicide. The only laboratory worthy of the name worked with bees!”
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