British comedian Elf Lyons performing her solo show, Talk Dirty, at Monkey Barrel Comedy club at Edinburgh festival in capital of Scotland on August 5, 2021. The Edinburgh international festival announced much-reduced programme this year. (Photo by Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian)

A red squirrel sniffs out nuts inside Christmas stockings as part of the festive celebrations and enrichment programme at Wildwood Escot Park in Ottery St Mary, Devon, United Kingdom on December 17, 2020. (Photo by Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images)

Sky attends the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall on August 20, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A palm squirrel and ring-rosed parakeet compete for space on a stump in a residential area of Chandigarh, India in the last decade of August 2024. (Photo by Anuj Jain/Solent News)

Gray whale feeding at the surface and showing it's baleen. (Photo by Christopher Swann/Biosphoto)

The Guinness World Record for the fastest tortoise in the world is held by Bertie, a South African leopard tortoise, who covered 5.49 metres in 19.59 seconds. (Photo by Paul Michael Hughes/Guinness World Records/PA Wire Press Association)

An American robin feeds on holly berries in a thicket near Elkton in southwestern Oregon on November 16, 2024. Many birds can safely consume holly berries, including blackbirds, redwings, and thrushes. There is an old wives tale that if you see a bird eating a berry, it is safe for humans to eat, but this is not true. Birds consume many plants that are poisonous to humans, holly berries included. (Photo by Robin Loznak/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Once upon a time a myth was born that insects, unlike animals, are just a machines that not capable of learning and survive only based on their instincts. That myth has become the widespread opinion. Of course, this opinion is indeed erroneous, like many other widespread opinions. Let us try to find out which part is a myth and which part is true.