Insect cognition Insect cognition Insect cognition describes the mental capacities and study of those capacities in insects. The field developed from comparative psychology where early studies focused more on animal behavior. Researchers have examined insect cognition in bees, fruit flies, and wasps. Research questions consist of experiments aimed to evaluate insects abilities with perception, attention, memory (wasp multiple nest), spatial cognition, tools use, problem solving, and concepts. Unlike in animal behavior the concept of group cognition plays a big part in insect studies. It is hypothesized some insect classes like ant and bees think with a group cognitive to function within their
Rasberry crazy ant fire ants. After exposure to fire ant venom, "N. fulva" retreats, covers itself with formic acid and returns to the fight. This is the first known example of an insect detoxifying another insect's venom, and the first discovery of an ionic liquid in nature which results from mixing of formic acid with venom from "S. invicta". How formic acid acts as an antidote against the much more toxic fire ant's venom is unknown. Fire ant venom is a mixture of toxic alkaloids and proteins that presumably enable the alkaloids to enter rival ants’ cells. Each alkaloid in the fire ant’s