Bumblebee facial movements give clues to their inner lives

Macquarie University researchers demonstrated that buff-tailed bumblebees exhibit mouth-wiping and head-shaking responses to bitter tastes, tongue protrusions to sweet tastes, and crucially, altered their taste preference for salty solutions when dehydrated—behavioral changes linked to dopamine and endocannabinoid chemistry that suggest insects have internal affective states analogous to emotion.