While there's no single "smartest," Honey Bees are often considered top contenders due to complex communication (waggle dance), problem-solving, memory, counting ability, and even recognizing human faces, with Ants, Dragonflies, and jumping spiders like the Portia also showcasing impressive intelligence through social organization, predatory planning, or tool use, respectively, showing different forms of insect cognition.
The Four Most Intelligent Insects
Chimpanzees have been subjected to countless hours of research with the goal of better understanding their cognition. The result is that we can confidently say that chimps are one of the most intelligent species on earth. Humans share 99 percent of our DNA with chimps, so this should come as no surprise.
The deadliest insect is, in fact, the deadliest critter in the entire animal kingdom. It is the humble mosquito, which kills more than 700,000 people every year. Skeeters are vectors for a host of nasty diseases, including malaria, dengue, West Nile, yellow fever, Zika, chikungunya, and lymphatic filariasis.
Controlling Castes
All termites are born with the ability to become kings or queens. The king and queen produce pheromones that regulate workers, changing them into soldiers or swarmers based on the needs of the group.
Overall, honeybees are likely the most intelligent insects on the planet. This is assessed through a number of different criteria and traits that they possess. Many of these make them quite intelligent, even in comparison to more developed organisms, such as primates and dolphins.
For thousands of years, it has been considered lucky to have a cricket on the hearth, especially in Asian countries where crickets were once used as “watchdogs.” When danger approached, the cricket's chirping would stop.
In Europe, dragonflies have often been seen as sinister. Some English vernacular names, such as "horse-stinger", "devil's darning needle", and "ear cutter", link them with evil and injury. Some of these reference the popular misconception that dragonflies can bite or sting humans.
Number 1: Border Collie.
Encephalization quotient?!
Humans, as you could probably guess, have the largest quotient, at a whopping 7. Dolphins aren't far off us, at around 5. Your pet dog is in at around 3. It may be due to this that dolphins have so many traits that we see among human toddlers.
Cockroaches are relatively simple animals, but even so, A.I. still lags behind.
Dung Beetle
Relative to its size, the dung beetle is not only the strongest insect in the world but the strongest animal. It can pull over 1,000 times its own body weight. If a human being were that strong, he or she would be able to pull six fully loaded double-decker buses all at the same time.
1. Chimpanzee. Humans and chimps share a surprising 98.8% of their DNA. They are our closest living relatives and considered by most scientists to be the second most intelligent species on Earth, behind humans.
Various cultures use shamrocks, rabbits feet, horseshoes and jade to ward off bad luck. We recite sayings and prayers. We avoid the number 13. We participate in odd superstitions: Tiger Woods always wore red shirts on the last day of a major.
In the weightlifting event, the undisputed champion is the dung beetle. This incredible insect can lift over 1,000 times its own body weight, making it the strongest animal on Earth relative to its size. Imagine a human lifting 80 tons.
An IQ of 130 puts you in the top 2% of the population. An IQ of 145 is the top 0.2%. An IQ of 160 is the top 0.01%.
Bugs We Love to Love: 4 Insects That Make Great Pets
Though research is ongoing, initial findings have indicated that jumping spiders may be able to employ working memory to form plans that allow them to locate their food while avoiding obstacles. This fact is even more amazing when you consider that the jumping spider has a brain roughly the size of a sesame seed!
22 These are the insects you may eat: all kinds of locusts, winged locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers. 23 But all other insects that have wings and walk on four feet you are to hate. 24 Those insects will make you unclean, and anyone who touches the dead body of one of these insects will become unclean until evening.
When an ant is crushed, it releases alarm and trail pheromones. These chemical signals don't just disappear — they linger and attract other ants. What started as a small group can grow into a larger stream of foragers following the scent. This is a core reason why squishing ants can make your infestation worse.
Insect queens refer to the reproductive female members of social insect colonies, such as ants and honey bees, which can live significantly longer than their non-reproductive counterparts and have the ability to produce a large number of eggs.