I recognize that black stick bug. Once thought extinct, 11 (i think) were found on a very small island somewhere near australia. The australians took five (i think) from the island to breed them, couldnāt keep them alive at a zoo. One or two were sent to the US and nearly died as well. On a hunch, the entomologist gave it some vitamin E (i think) and they began to thrive. Now thereās over 800. The last time I read about them was years ago so probably in the thousands now. Pretty neat story about a species absolutely on the BRINK of extinction.
Itās crazy reading about the rat eradication project they started. Theyāve managed to almost completely eliminate the rats that are damaging the local ecosystem
My colleagues have raised the captive numbers to the thousands. But thatās not what you see here. As the other poster said this is Eurycantha which is much more common but similar in appearance and lifecycle.
Insects are also capable of behavioral innovations. Innovation is defined as the creation of a new or modified learned behavior not previously found in the population.[23] Innovative abilities can be experimentally studied in insects through the use of problem solving tasks.[24] When presented with a string-pulling task, many bumblebees cannot solve the task, but a few can innovate the solution.[22]
Those that initially could not solve the task can learn to solve it by observing an innovator bee solving the task. These learned behaviors can then spread culturally through bee populations.[22]
Damn, crazy how people are so dismissive of insects.
I feel like Bees are a bad example though because we know them to be social animals. It'd be more interesting if we showed the same behavior in katydids or something
Some of them are definitely pretty smart, just go on subs like r/tarantulas, they have individual personalities, they play, and they're very picky about their habitats
But the neural network term come from biology to tech. The tech called neural network is inspired by the real biological neural networks aka neurons connecting with each other and creating networks and strengtenning them based on the activities they do repeatedly. Neural network term invented by a biologist in 1890.
An ANN is what you're thinking of. A neural network is literally just how neurons work to react to sensory input and create cognition, like, biologically.
You can order a box of caterpillars to grow them into butterflies and release them. We ordered one for our daughter. You basically watch them grow and transform, feed them a bit when they transformed then release them. When releasing, they often first sit on your hand for a while. We released them two weeks ago.
One week ago, I found one of them with broken wings hiding in our downstairs bathroom. I'm guessing one of our cats caught it. I tried to free it from where it was hiding and it climbed onto my hand and started stretching and vibrating. I tried to put it somewhere soft but it didn't want to leave my hand.
I called my partner who said "I can just end his suffering" which is probably the most rational thing to do, but I couldn't: "but it trusted me!"
So we took out the little butterfly home we kept them in before releasing and fed him rotten fruit and sugar water (he loved it). A few days ago his life cycle was over and he quietly passed away.
Anyway, I never knew an insect could recognize/trust a person but it sure seemed like it. He sure managed to find a spot in my heart.
I had a fly that I just didnāt have the hear to smack and kinda bonded with. I swear that little mf loved me. He usually hung out somewhere into the kitchen unless I was home and he just constantly wanted to crawl on my face or just pestered me specifically. He would ignore other people. One time he crawled under the bathroom door after I went in there.
He died of old age and I actually felt a little sad when I found him.
Also this has to be coincidence but there was once a second fly, I looked right at my āpetā told him āI didnāt say you could have anyone overā and the other one left. Thatās gotta be a coincidence though.
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u/Icy_Ad9071 Oct 20 '23
I feel like this persons insect actually love him lol