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Fruit fly

Drosophila melanogaster

The largest complete brain wiring diagram mapped so far, covering about 139,000 neurons.

Neurons

139,255 measured · whole adult brain (proofread neurons, one female); excludes ventral nerve cord

Dorkenwald S, Matsliah A, Sterling AR, Schlegel P, et al.; FlyWire Consortium (2024) Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain. Nature 634(8032):124-138. doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07558-y.

Evidence

• Flies learn visual place memory in a virtual arena.
  Ofstad TA, Zuker CS, Reiser MB (2011) Visual place learning in Drosophila melanogaster. Nature 474(7350):204-207. doi:10.1038/nature10131.

The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness (2024) finds at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates and in many invertebrates, including cephalopods, decapod crustaceans and insects.

Assess it against the published criteria