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Researchers have pinpointed the cluster of cells in wasp brains that allows them to distinguish the faces of their wasp peers. These neurons seem to be strikingly similar to face-recognition cells in the brains of primates, including humans.

鈥淲e have this convergent evolution between these really, really distant species,鈥� says at Cornell University in New York. He and his colleagues studied northern paper wasps (Polistes fuscatus), which each have subtly unique colour markings on their faces. They are known to be able to recognise other individual wasps.

Sheehan says they are 鈥渁mazing鈥� at this compared with other wasp species 鈥� they can even recognise a wasp they met once for 45 minutes in a Petri dish a week prior. This ability is thought to help them better collaborate with their colony sisters, for example during the construction of a new hive.

Sheehan鈥檚 team outfitted 18 female wasps with miniature brain probes that recorded which neurons were excited when they were shown a series of more than 2000 images. These included pictures of wasps facing the camera close-up, wasps with scrambled facial features, side-on views of a wasp, colourless wasp silhouettes, geometrical shapes and patterns and random objects like cars.

Out of more than 790 neurons reacting to images, about 150 of those selectively lit up at the sight of the shape of a wasp, and just a tight-knit 35 selectively fired when seeing front-view images of wasp faces, says , also at Cornell University. These neurons fired at different rates when seeing different individual wasps, suggesting they might also be encoding some identity information.

鈥淭his study suggests that the social benefits of rapid, accurate face recognition may have independently selected for face-specific cells in both wasps and humans,鈥� says at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the study.

But at the University of Lorraine in France, who also wasn鈥檛 involved in the study, thinks that although the experiment clearly suggests these cells are involved in a network dedicated to face recognition, similar to the one in primates, it is a stretch to compare what the wasps are doing to how other primates, let alone humans, recognise faces.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a really bold claim,鈥� says Rossion. 鈥淚鈥檓 extremely sceptical. I don鈥檛 think we can compare.鈥�

For instance, he says the fact that wasp face cells fire at different rates when they see different individuals could simply be a case where they recognise they are looking at different things, different patterns or lighting, not necessarily that they are encoding information about different wasp identities.

So just because wasps and primates might have similar networks doesn鈥檛 mean the networks will work the same, says Rossion. After all, wasps can recognise only six to 10 individuals and the conditions have to be just right 鈥� they can鈥檛 do it if any of the features are missing or scrambled, if the body behind the head is missing or if the image lacks colour. Meanwhile, humans can pick between thousands of faces even from the smallest of details.