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The honeybee continues to be developed as a model species in many research areas, including studies related to the effects of alcohol. Here, we investigate whether workers display one of the key features of alcoholism, namely withdrawal symptoms. We show that workers fed for a prolonged time on food spiked with ethanol, after discontinuation of access to such food, exhibited a marked increase in the consumption of ethanol and a slight increase in mortality. We additionally show that withdrawal symptoms do not include an increase in appetitiveness of ethanol diluted in water. Our results demonstrate that workers can develop alcohol dependence, which might be especially important in the natural setting of repeated exposure to ethanol in floral nectar and for their potential as a model of alcohol addiction.

Brain lateralization is hypothesized to improve the efficiency of information processing. Here, we found that some Myrmeleon bore antlion larvae showed individual asymmetry in righting from a supine to normal position over one side of their body, which can be considered a reflection of greater brain lateralization. We demonstrated that these behaviourally asymmetrical individuals showed improved learning abilities, providing novel evidence that brain lateralization leads to beneficial effects on cognitive functions., (© 2017 The Author(s).)