“If I tear off a leg from an insect, it doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to be sad and in pain? That’s false, I’m convinced of it.”

The first is sentience: “Our specific question is: can we talk about the feeling of fear in bees? We can establish conditioning protocols in which the animals learn to inhibit an extremely strong spontaneous reaction in them, which is to go towards the light. If they go towards the device that we have designed, they will receive a very light electric touch (which does not damage them). Do the animals that learn that the light anticipates the arrival of the shock (compared to those that cannot anticipate anything) prepare themselves with an expression of fear? We are therefore analyzing the neurophysiological markers.” The results have not yet been evaluated by other scientists, but they show that bees that can anticipate the arrival of the shock produce “very particular physiological responses”: “The animal is tense; its breathing increases, so the carbon dioxide pollution increases. The body temperature also appears to increase. A whole physiological background shows that this animal is preparing itself for the experience of possible punishment with what, in mammals, we would call fear.”An insect with an “excessively important” role in Belgium will see its territory shrink significantly in the next fifty yearsThe team is now preparing to test metacognition in bees. The protocol, called opting out, will this time aim to give the bee the possibility of making choices with the risk of making a mistake and receiving a significant penalty or leaving the device to return later. “The animal will express through this last choice that it is not sure of succeeding. If this metacognition experiment works, I think we can say that the bee also has self-awareness because we know very well that this introspective evaluation of its own knowledge is something that applies to oneself,” judges Martin Giurfa.

Great debate on animal welfare

These studies could also lead to a broader debate in terms of animal welfare, particularly in science: “The approach we are taking is not to reduce animal experimentation, but to establish the conditions for it to be carried out with the greatest respect for the experimental subject,” emphasizes Martin Giurfa. “And indeed, if certain levels of consciousness are shown in these bees, there will most likely be a demand for regulations for them.”“Working towards less animal suffering in science is an ethical duty”Currently, unlike many other animals (dogs, mice and even cephalopods, which are included in the European Directive on animal welfare), there is no ethical dossier to submit for the use of insects in laboratory studies. At the end of the experiment, for example, an insect can be crushed, cut in two, have its head torn off… “Today, I have the right of life or death over all the animals that I study,” notes Belgian entomologist François Verheggen. If there is no ethical file, it is because we currently consider that there is no suffering. That if I tear off a leg from an insect, it does not have the cognitive capacities to be sad and to be in pain. This idea is false, today I am convinced of it.” Even if adopting an ethical code requiring researchers to limit the suffering of insects “would enormously complicate (his) research“, Professor Verheggen (ULiège) thinks that we will have to start thinking about this type of rule. Similarly, “when everyone has accepted the level of sensitivity of an insect, when it has first been well demonstrated and well communicated, it would not be surprising that tomorrow, if we have food based on insects, we demand that there be breeding conditions that are respectful of the animal and that we ask for an ethical label…”“Few humans can claim to be as good a leader as a chimpanzee leader.”

Solitary insects vs. social insects

But he also wants to qualify: “At the insect level, data on consciousness, for example, remains limited, we have clues, but no definitive proof. Moreover, there are insects and insects. For example, the bumblebee is a social insect, has altruistic behavior, awareness that it is part of a larger organism which is the colony… And then there are solitary insects (like the fly, Editor’s note) which have probably not benefited from the same cognitive capacities in their evolution.” For Martin Giurfa, this is indeed a relevant hypothesis: “Being a social insect implies communication codes, specific tasks assigned to certain individuals, the fact of living in a specific place and sharing resources…”. But no study, for example in solitary insects, yet supports this reasoning. “If the time comes for a debate on bees, the question will be: what about other insects? Rigorously, we should provide evidence for each. But perhaps we will extend the rules to all social insects, for example…”