Insect Sleep

When people talk to a pest control technician, they generally expect that the technician will know a lot about pests. This is very reasonable, but knowing things about stuff doesn't happen automatically. Earlier today, I was trying to think of questions people might ask me that I wouldn't know the answers to, and I eventually found myself wondering-- do insects sleep?

A quick web search suggests that insects do indeed sleep; having a central nervous system seems to be one of the major prerequisites for sleeping and insects do check that box. There have been several experiments in insect sleep-- in one instance, researchers kept a vial of fruit flies awake by regularly tapping on the glass. When the tired flies were finally left alone, they were much less active than flies in another vial that was undisturbed. I can just imagine meetings in this lab to brainstorm how to keep flies awake. Apparently, a later insect sleep study found that caffeine would also have done the job.