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 helicopter pours water over a wildfire with the Space Shuttle Endeavour seen through heavy smoke in the background April 27, 2011 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Photo by Roberto Gonzalez/Getty Images)

Kaci Nuyen 8, holds a “Kiddizoom Twist” camera during a Hamleys Christmas toy photocall at Hamleys Toy store on June 28, 2011 in London, England. The famous toy store unveiled today their “must have” toys for Christmas 2011. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Interpolitex - the largest national forum of homeland security is the only national security fair of federal status and importance. It is held to provide manufacturers, suppliers and users special equipment and weaponry with an efficient tool for implementing a wide range of advertising and marketing objectives, monitoring of the market and deal-making. (Russia, Moscow, October 2011)

Student protestors, including one girl with a camera, struggle with soldiers from the Chinese Army, the PLA. Tiananmen Square, 1989. (Photo by Jeff Widener/Associated Press)

A “Free Syrian Army” fighter in the Bustan Pasha neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, August 21, 2013. (Photo by James Lawler Duggan)

A Ford Motor Company 1954 V8 model car parked in a garage in the village of Quivican, south of Havana, October 11, 2009. (Photo by Desmond Boylan/Reuters)

A man drinks at a "colored" water cooler in a streetcar terminal in Oklahoma City, July 1939. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress)