Reversing ants navigate successfully despite going backwards

The Company of Biologists
2.4K
888 views

Transcript

The interactive transcript could not be loaded.
Rating is available when the video has been rented.
This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.
Published on Jul 21, 2016

Desert ants (Cataglyphis fortis) are remarkable navigators, but how do they locate home when they have to shift into reverse when dragging a heavy load? In a pair of papers, scientists from the University of Ulm, Germany, have discovered that ants are capable of successfully navigating to the nest while going backwards, despite reversing the visual cues that are essential for navigation, and that they somehow measure the length of each stride precisely to keep track of where they are, instead of counting the number taken.

The full research papers can be accessed at http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219... and http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219....

Comments are disabled for this video.
When autoplay is enabled, a suggested video will automatically play next.

Up next

to add this to Watch Later

Add to