For the love of insects: Here are the four smartest

Mother Nature is no respecter of human superiority. She has given animals languages we don’t understand, gifts people cannot learn and “thinking caps” that don’t look or think like ours. Insects are no exception to the creative ways and means nature divinely equips creation. Here are the four smartest, recounts Claire Hamlett of Sentient Media.

Honey bee delights in pollen.
(Shutterstock photo)

Bees are smart and clever dancers. “A study published in 2022, showed for the first time that bumblebees can make trade-off decisions, choosing between enduring discomfort for a reward of a solution with high sugar content or no discomfort and a solution with lower sugar content. . . . Honeybees can do basic arithmetic, which has upended the assumption that a large brain is required to do math. They communicate complex information to each other, like where to find the best source of food to bring back to the hive, by using symbolic movements to indicate distance and direction.”

Ants carrying lunch.
(Photo by J. Lazono, Unsplash)

Ants: They can do more than lift over ten times their weight. “Not only are ants great at the complex task of foraging and finding their way home with their bounty, but they also engage in agricultural activities that show humans are far from unique in being able to cultivate their own food sources. . . . In 2020, another accidental discovery was made about farmer ants when a photographer happened upon brown ants farming giant oak aphids that live on English oak trees. The ants build barns for the aphids out of mosses, lichens, and beetle shells on the tree trunks, and will move them to underground shelters to protect them from bad weather. All this is so the ants can ‘milk’ the aphids for their honeydew.”

Cockroaches can be learners.
(Photo by E. Karits, Unsplash)

Cockroaches--of course, this human nemesis makes the list. “In the Netflix prison drama, "Orange is the New Black," a cockroach named "Yoda," is trained as a courier by inmates and is shown carrying a cigarette between cells. While this scenario might seem a bit far-fetched, it’s certainly not impossible. Cockroaches are not only capable of learning and remembering positive or negative associations with different smells, but they also demonstrate individuality in doing so. Indeed, one study showed that individual cockroaches may be shy or bold, with some much more willing to spend time exploring the kinds of brightly lit environments to which they are averse.”

Female paper wasps fight each other.
(Photo by Tom Sid, Unsplash)

Paper wasps engage in politics and have their own Fight Club. “Paper wasps can recognize individual wasp faces, a cognitive skill that comes in handy given that a nest can have multiple queens who need to negotiate with one another. The dominant queen will lay the most eggs, leaving subordinate queens to decide whether to stay or leave and establish their own smaller nests, which will be more susceptible to attack or failure. In order to determine the dominant queen, paper wasps fight each other. Facial recognition means they know who they’ve fought and whether or not they were beaten, maintaining a more harmonious nest."