Bumblebees Show Pleasure and Disgust Like Mammals Do

Bumblebees react to sweet tastes by extending their tongues and to bitter ones by shaking their heads—mirror responses to pleasure and distaste seen in mammals. Since insects and vertebrates split from a common ancestor 600 million years ago, this parallel suggests either that evolution strongly favors these emotional responses across species, or that such feelings are older than we thought. It challenges what we assume about consciousness in non-human creatures.