Electrostatic ‘thinking’: How insects evolved to navigate the world

For years, biologists have wondered whether bees have [some] grand sense that we lack. The static electricity they accumulate by flying — similar to the charge generated when you shuffle across carpet in thick socks — could be potent enough for them to sense and influence surrounding objects through the air.

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In 2013, Daniel Robert, a sensory ecologist at the University of Bristol in England, broke ground in this discipline when his lab discovered that bees can detect and discriminate among electric fields radiating from flowers.

[In 2024], studies from Robert’s lab revealed how static attracts pollen to butterflies and moths, and may help caterpillars to evade predators. This new research goes beyond documenting the ecological effects of static: It also aims to uncover whether and how evolution has fine-tuned this electric sense. Electrostatics may turn out to be an evolutionary force in small creatures’ survival that helps them find food, migrate, and infest other living things.

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