It is also shared ignorance. The collection of the Hunterian Museum represents the interest a century and more ago in comparative neuroanatomy, which is now out of fashion. We might even discover what is crucial for consciousness. Biologically insects are extraordinarily successful, though what they get out of their lives is totally mysterious. One's first thought might be that insects are mere automata, lacking ability to learn, but this is not so.
Bees can learn flower patterns and complex routes to food.
They can navigate, and communicate in many ways including the famous dance-language discovered by Karl von Frisch. No doubt there is always a danger of reading too much intelligence into innate behaviour, but it seems impossible to see this as completely stereotyped, for it is adjusted to particular conditions and needs. Formica pallidefulvo learns a six-point maze with ease, only 2 to 3 times slower than laboratory rats. Worker bees can navigate from the Sun with a subtlety we associate with bird navigation, compensating for movement of the Sun when they are prevented from flying or seeing its change of position. In some way, they must compute their course by referring to an internal clock.