Navigating Ants

[Guest jamongo]

From Scientific American:

 

ANTS ON STILTS Desert ants travel long distances to find food, using celestial cues to orient themselves and find their way. Scientists knew the ants must also have a method for determining exactly how far they have marched, but until now they were uncertain of the mechanism. A new experiment has revealed that the ants measure distance with some sort of internal pedometer, based on stride length. Researchers altered the legs of a group of ants, giving some "stilts," like the Cataglyphis ant shown above with red leg extensions. Other ants received "stumps," their legs shortened by amputation. The ants on stilts had a lengthened stride and marched past their goal, whereas the stump-legged ants stopped short of their goal, suggesting that stride length indeed serves as an ant pedometer. The research is detailed in the current issue of Science.

 

Link:

http://www.sciam.com/gallery_directory.cfm

 

:shrug:

 

This just seemed to be so strange to me. I'm not sure why.

[Mercedes Benzene]

Hahahaha.

Very amusing.

Can you picture it? Ants on stilts.:hihi:

 

Interesting snippet, but I'm not sure where you are going with this thread. :hihi:

What scientific implications does this have? What else can be learned about ants?

 

etc.

[Guest jamongo]

Well, I never thought of ants as having a great amount of intelligence. I thought they performed most of their tasks by instinct.

 

But Let's say we have an ant with legs of normal length. He says to himself, there is food 40 meters due north and he goes there.

 

A second ant, with legs that some fiend has attached stilts to, says the same thing and he goes past the food.

 

The third ant, with partially amputated legs, courtesy of the same aforementioned fiend, never gets there.

 

So the question seems to be, How did the ants know there was food 40 meters north?

[Ganoderma]

maybe they can count?

[Mercedes Benzene]

Perhaps they are simply good judges of distances.

They probably "see" the world in terms of "ant steps", or some other form of measure that makes sense to them.

 

...although surely I do not think that the ants are actually measuring. :D

[Guest jamongo]

Perhaps they are simply good judges of distances

 

But if they were indeed, "good judges of distances" (is that "s" at the end of distance really necessary? Oh well, never mind,), it wouldn't matter how long their legs were, would it?

I mean it appears from the article, the length of their legs determines the distance they travel. How can this be? What is working to ascertain how far they have traveled, with normal legs, short legs are extended legs. Do they have some sort of an internal pedometer calibrated to normal length gams?

[Mercedes Benzene]

(is that "s" at the end of distance really necessary? Oh well, never mind,),

 

No... it's not. But it is also not gramatically incorrect. ;)

[InfiniteNow]

But if they were indeed, "good judges of distances" (is that "s" at the end of distance really necessary? Oh well, never mind,), it wouldn't matter how long their legs were, would it?

I mean it appears from the article, the length of their legs determines the distance they travel. How can this be?

So, if a 7 foot tall man takes 50 normal steps, and a 4 foot tall woman takes 50 normal steps, who will have travelled farther? Of course leg length matters. Just ask my girlfriend who is always telling me to slow down when we are walking side by side and she can't keep up!

 

 

What they found in this study was that ants who had their legs shortened did not go far enough toward their goal. Ants who had their legs lengthened went past their goal. This indicates that they are travelling based on number of steps taken, much like a treasure map...

 

40 paces north, 14 paces east, dig... Problem is, Andre the Giant would have gone too far, and Mini Me not far enough...