On the other hand, given the query "facial recognition in paper wasps", Perplexity just gave not only an answer in accord with my prior understanding derived from reading in the field, but also surfaced a paper [1] published two months ago that I hadn't yet seen.

I expected less, and I suspect a researcher could easily find gaps. But from the perspective an amateur autodidact, that's still a fairly impressive result.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1918592117