A study has revealed that alike humans, flies also feel fear. The study findings have suggested that the insects could even experience other emotions. There are possibilities that other small creatures like ants and spiders may have emotions, the study stated.

In a press release, William Gibson, a Caltech postdoctoral fellow and lead author of the study, said, “No one will argue with you if you claim that flies have four fundamental drives just as humans do: feeding, fighting, fleeing, and mating. Taking the question step further — whether flies that flee a stimulus are afraid of that stimulus — is more difficult”.

To know about the flies’ fear, the researchers used shadows. According to the researchers, they wanted to figure out how the insects react to something that could be fear inducing. During the study, the flies were enclosed in an area where they were exposed to an overhead shadow.

The researchers said they noted that flies increased their speed when they saw an overhead shadow. Usually, flies froze in place while they feel fear. According to the researchers, the overhead shadows even forced the insects to leave their food sources. In a separate experiment when the hungry flies left their food source, they return to it but before that the insects took a long time to calm down. The researchers said they noticed that when the flies were exposed to more shadows, they took longer time to calm down return to food source.

Gibson and other researchers said that the study showed that flies do indeed feel the emotion fear as humans do. According to them, they are planning to perform further studies to know more about the flies. The study has been published in the Journal Current Biology.