Buzz off, brainiac

Insects could be as intelligent as larger animals, despite having brains the size of pinheads, scientists have said. Writing in the Current Biology journal, Lars Chittka, professor of sensory and behavioural ecology at Queen Mary, University of London's Research Centre for Psychology, and Jeremy Niven, Royal Society research fellow at the University of Cambridge, say brain size does not predict animals' capacity for intelligent behaviour. Honeybees, for example, can count, categorise objects and differentiate between symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes.