Taste is an important sense found in almost all species of animals. Taste is the dominant sense associated with food and eating, although smell certainly plays a role here as well. Eating and food acquisition is essential to animal survival.

Whenever an animal is in the process of devouring a meal, the sense of taste plays an important role. Historically, taste has allowed an animal to discern if something was beneficial to eat or if it was something that would be harmful. While such a statement might have applied to ancient humans who were hunters and gatherers, it probably doesn’t apply to most people today. In fact, it might be just the opposite.

Recent reports have surfaced suggesting that human desire for sweet- and salty-tasting foods might actually be harmful to our health. Indeed it has been shown in some studies that obese people who have either lost the sense of taste or had it diminished are less likely to eat food harmful to them.

For good or bad, there is probably no time of the year when we human animals are more acutely aware of our sense of taste than during that annual holiday feast season. Sense of taste is important to people and certainly makes our lives more pleasant on a regular basis. But when we sit down to our holiday feasts two things are likely: We will give our taste buds a real workout, and we just might consume more food than is good for us.

So how does the ability to taste compare in humans and insects? Behavioral studies in insects show that, like humans, their sense of taste includes the ability to detect sweet, salty, acidic and bitter tastes. Of these four, only sweet is acceptable to insects. Unlike humans, the other three tastes are not of interest to insects.

In general, insects have a more sensitive “taster” than do humans. For instance, honey bees can detect a much lower concentration of the sugar fructose than can humans. Additionally, honey bees cannot be fooled into sipping up artificial sweeteners. Honey bees will not drink solutions that humans would consider sweet, such as those enhanced by Splenda, Equal or Sweet’N Low.

Any substance that cannot provide an energy source for honey bees and be processed into honey is ignored. I guess honey bees aren’t in the business of producing a “health food” honey substitute.

The sense of taste in humans is associated with taste buds located on our tongue. Most humans have around 10,000 taste buds. Each is replaced about every two weeks. However, as we age, all the taste buds aren’t replaced so our sense of taste tends to decrease as we get older.

As you can probably imagine, insects’ sense of taste is also associated with mouthparts. But that is not the only location of the sense in insects. Insects also have cells that function in similar fashion to our taste buds on the antennae, legs and the ovipositor. These insect taste buds can be in the shape of a hair, a peg or a pit. Human taste buds and the equivalent insect devices – generally known as chemoreceptors – function to determine something about food.

In the case of caterpillars, having taste censors in the mouth means the insect will have to take a bite to tell if the item is a suitable food. Many adult insects also take bites to determine whether or not to eat a plant.

Honey bees use their proboscis to determine if a substance is sweet enough to bring home to the hive.

An insect can use its feet to determine if something is good to eat. If it is, the insect puts down its proboscis to begin feeding. This is the case with many butterflies and flies. Walking on something that is good to eat prompts what is known among entomologists as the tarsal taste and proboscis extension reflex.

In other words, if you are standing on good food, the tongue comes out.

In other cases, when a female butterfly stands on a plant she can determine if that plant is a suitable host for her potential offspring. If so, she deposits an egg on the plant. In the same way, a female parasitic wasp can use her ovipositor to taste if an insect is a potential host for her young.

Our human sense of taste allows us to enjoy good food and spirits such as those associated with the holidays. But don’t you wish you had an insect’s ability to taste with an extremity? That way you could stick your finger into the cranberry sauce before deciding to add it to your dinner plate.

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with comments for Tom Turpin may write to him in care of this publication.