Icelandic horses play in their paddock at a stud farm in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany, as a mist rolls in on Thursday, August 5, 2021. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Sunrise in the New Forest near Lyndhurst in Hampshire, UK this morning, August 15, 2024. (Photo by Cenk Albayrak-Touye/Picture Exclusive)

A green jumping spider (Lyssomanes viridis), in a forested area of Cerro de la Muerte, in San Jose, Costa Rica, 20 May 2025. International Day for Biological Diversity is celebrated every 22 May around the world. (Photo by Jeffrey Arguedas/EPA/EFE)

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.

A view of the fireworks during the Edge at Hudson Yard's 4th of July Celebration at Edge at Hudson Yards on July 04, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Edge at Hudson Yards)

A man walks on a bridge crossing over the Besor stream on a rainy day, near Kibbutz Tze'elim in Israel's southern Negev desert February 16, 2017. (Photo by Amir Cohen/Reuters)

A shooting star (L, top) is seen on the night sky during the perseid meteor shower in Jankowo, near Poznan, 11 August 2016. The first half of August is traditionally the best time to look out for meteors called “shooting stars”, or perseids which are the leftover dust particles of a comet tail associated with comet Swift-Tuttle. (Photo by Lukasz Ogrodowczyk/EPA)

A grasshopper rests on a photographic camera during a meeting in the village of Alto Jamari called to face the threat of armed land grabbers invading the Uru-eu-wau-wau Indigenous Reservation near Campo Novo de Rondonia, Brazil on January 30, 2019. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)