Beetle larvae think with a brain ’under construction’

Researchers at the University of Göttingen compare the development of beetle brains with that of flies In the human brain, hundreds of billions of nerve cells are interconnected in the most complicated way, and only when these interconnections are correctly made, can the brain function properly. This is no different for insects, even though their brains consist of -only- one hundred thousand to one million nerve cells. Nevertheless, fascinating and unexpectedly complicated behaviour can be observed in insects, for example when rearing offspring in the bee hive or when mosquitoes search for blood. To a large extent, the brain develops in the embryo, but in many animals it is completed only after birth. Now, biologists from the University of Göttingen have found out that beetle larvae start using their brains, although still -under construction-. The results have been published in the journal PLOS Biology. The biologists compared the development of the brains of flies and beetles, focusing on the "central complex" - a structure in the brain that insects need for their orientation in the environment.