Insects do the darnedest things!

The insect world fascinates us. It should, as we study insects every day. In our R&D lab, we can extract secrets such as what scents insects like or dislike, and what they respond to visually. 

But we like to see what else is out there. Here are a few recent examples showing what insects do naturally, and what they can be "trained" to do. 

Here's a video showing paper wasps in super-slow motion. One is taking water droplets back to the nest to cool it, and the other two are guarding the nest entrance. You can really see the legs dangling down when they fly -- which is one big characteristic that distinguishes them from yellowjackets. 

And then we have the tweeting houseflies. That's right -- houseflies have been "trained" to use Twitter. The flies are housed in an acrylic sphere, along with a computer keyboard. When they land on a key, it's entered into a Twitter text box -- and when it reaches 140 characters or a fly presses "Enter", it sends a tweet under the account @flycolony.

fly tweet from david bowen on Vimeo.