3 ms·

larvae behave, they learn, they forage, they do have a brain.

• causality0 4y ago
  Do they learn? What behaviors make a fruit fly larva more intelligent than a jellyfish?
  • moonbreams 4y ago
    Well granted they're solving quadratic equations, but neither are the adults. For instance, if you expose larvae a rewarding stimulus like sugar along with an odour, they will later be attracted to that odour. That is by definition learning, simple learning, but we have to start somewhere i guess. Interestingly there is some evidence that the memory lasts through to the adult stage, despite the fact that a lot of the brain is actually rewired during pupation.
    • causality0 4y ago
      Interesting, with the caveat that the odor/reward experiment was performed on larvae at a development stage with 10,000 neurons, not 3,000.