How Do Ants Find Their Way Home?
WouterDespite being small insects, ants are highly visual animals. They can find food and shelter, build elaborate tunnels and nests, and find weaknesses in their foundation. In some cases, they even use the visual system to make a complicated problem simpler.
One study showed that ants can recognize the distance from their nest to the sun. They can also calculate how much energy it will take them to get back.
Another study showed that ants can recognize the direction of their nest using the angle of the Sun. This is an important clue because it means that ants can find their nests even when they can’t see the sun. They can also see where they are using the’magic of the path’, or the process of path integration.
For example, the Spanish desert ant uses a process known as path integration to locate its nest. It memorizes the number of steps it takes from its nest to the sun and calculates the fastest route home. In addition, it uses a process called ‘path spotting’ to locate food sources.
Other studies have shown that ants are able to navigate in featureless terrain, even though they don’t have landmarks to guide them. These ants use a pheromone trail to locate food sources and lay down chemicals in the process. However, these chemicals are not able to survive in the desert environment.
In fact, it turns out that ants are actually better at finding their way home using other, more mundane, methods. They are able to recognize the distance from their nest to the sun and use the’magic of the path’, but they aren’t so clever when it comes to the optical flow hypothesis.
