Rhythm Abstraction in Bumble Bees Remains Inconclusive

Zeng et al. (2026) report rhythm abstraction in bumble bees. While we applaud this effort to expand the examination of rhythm perception into the insect clade, we argue that the evidence for rhythmic generalization remains inconclusive. The stimuli used to test tempo-invariance were not proportional transformations, as inter-flash gaps remained fixed across conditions. Discrimination in Experiment 3 could be explained by simpler local perceptual cues or absolute duration matching rather than global rhythmic patterns. The claim that “bumble bees also form robust abstract rhythm representations” is thus not supported by the study.