<p>Over the past decades many invertebrates, and in particular insects, have been shown to exhibit sophisticated cognitive abilities, suggesting that they can innovate, understand problems, and develop cultures. Many of these studies have been inspired from concepts and protocols derived from experimental psychology in humans and some other large-brained vertebrates. In this comment article associated to the topical collection “Towards a cognitive ecology of invertebrates”, we consider the main prospects and challenges of transferring cognitive concepts from the vertebrate literature to invertebrate studies at times when invertebrate cognition research is rapidly growing. We also discuss how these new discoveries in small-brained animals can be used to clarify the original concepts. We believe such tighter crosstalk between vertebrate and invertebrate communities is needed to move the field forward and facilitate comparative research to reconstruct the evolution of cognition.</p>