The Locale Map of Honey Bees: Do Insects Have Cognitive Maps?

Whereas higher vertebrates are able to construct a mental "map" of their home area and so use their knowledge of the spatial relations between landmarks to navigate along novel routes, invertebrates have been thought able to use landmarks in their navigation only as a familiar, route-specific series. Experiments with honey bees show that these insects have and use landmark maps thus invalidating this presumed invertebrate-vertebrate dichotomy.