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A trio of researchers with Kobe University in Japan has found that lycaenid butterfly caterpillars of the Japanese oakblue variety, have dorsal nectary organ secretions that cause ants that eat the material to abandon their fellow ants to instead hang out with and defend the caterpillar against enemies. In their paper published in the journal Current Biology, Masaru Hojo, Naomi Pierce and Kazuki Tsuji describe their research into the relationship between the two creatures and why they believe the nature of that relationship needs to be reclassified.
Scientists have studied Japanese oakblue butterflies before, noting that ants seem to guard the young caterpillars, but until now that relationship was described as reciprocal, both seemed to derive some benefit. The caterpillars got protection and the ants got a nice meal. Now however, according to this new research, the ants may not be willing partners.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @04:25PM
Free will can be an illusion or not, but at least consciousness or self-awareness are probably more "real". Descartes could say "Cogito ergo sum", a child can recognize himself in the mirror, but very simple automata cannot have subjectivity. It can be argued that a few thousands neurons do not pass this threshold.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 05 2015, @10:06AM
It could also be argued that exactly twelve angels can dance on the head of a pin. That doesn't mean there's any particular validity to the argument.
I would agree that consciousness and self awareness are, in some arguably poorly-defined sense, "real" phenomena, but at present we have essentially no idea of how they arise. We've only just discovered a brain region that appears to be responsible for the experience in humans, but have no understanding of the specific mechanisms involved. Much less whether those are the *only* mechanisms by which they could arise. As such, any assertions about their absence in other species based on physical characteristics is entirely speculative, and should be treated accordingly.
In a similar vein it can be conclusively state that, from a purely mechanistic perspective, insects and arthropods do not feel pain like we do. Their nervous system simply lacks the mechanisms used by mammals to convey pain information, and thus they obviously cannot feel pain via those mechanisms. HOWEVER, that does not necessarily mean they do not feel pain via some other mechanism - and especially many higher arthropods such as lobsters have been observed engaging in the excessive grooming behaviors commonly associated with pain in mammals and other higher animals that do share the same pain mechanisms as us. Certainly that is not evidence that they DO feel pain, but when making statements about the capacity and range of subjective experience (aka sentience) I would suggest that behavior is probably at least as informative as mechanistic analysis.