Nobody will click on or continue reading to see ad impressions if it said “biologists still think animals are conscious”. Or “biologists differ over the meaning of consciousness and which exact animals qualify.” Whenever you want to know why news sites do what they do, it’s so they can serve more ads. That’s the business model now.

Also most science reporting is not good. They’re quoting an econ professor. These articles are really written by someone with a deep understanding of a subject matter.

Notice they’re not giving you examples of noted biologists who think all animals are not conscious. There are few to none.

The only statement in here that’s interesting is that bees may be conscious. I think you’d get push back on that, depending on your definition, and the article does mention the difficulty of definition of consciousness.