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Desert ants (Melophorus bagoti) navigating with robustness to distortions of the natural panorama

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Abstract

Many insects are known to use the terrestrial visual panorama for navigation. Research suggests that large-scale panoramic properties are often used for orientation rather than individual objects, usually called landmarks. We degraded the natural panorama encountered by Australian red honey ants, Melophorus bagoti, to test how robust their orientation based on the terrestrial panorama is. Foraging ants were lured to a feeder at a constant location. Trained ants were allowed to run home individually with food, but were captured just before they entered their nest. The tested ant was brought back to the location of the feeder, now covered, and allowed to run home again under different distortions of the natural panorama. In one experiment, a large tract of the view on one side of the feeder was obstructed by a tall plastic sheet. In a second experiment, the visual heights of terrestrial objects were altered by raising or lowering the ant by 80 cm. Under both kinds of distortions, the ants continued to be well oriented in the homeward direction. Navigation based on the natural terrestrial panorama proved robust to large distortions.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Centre for Appropriate Technology, Alice Springs, for letting us do field research on their site, and supplying storage space, and the CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems at Alice Springs for providing some administrative help. Thanks to Simon Griffith for help with photospectrometry. Funding was provided by the Australian Research Council in a Discovery Project Grant (DP110100608).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2, Canada

    S. Schwarz

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    E. Julle-Daniere, L. Morin, P. Schultheiss, J. Ives & K. Cheng

  3. Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    P. Schultheiss

  4. School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB, UK

    A. Wystrach

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  1. S. Schwarz
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  2. E. Julle-Daniere
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  3. L. Morin
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Correspondence to K. Cheng.

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Schwarz, S., Julle-Daniere, E., Morin, L. et al. Desert ants (Melophorus bagoti) navigating with robustness to distortions of the natural panorama. Insect. Soc. 61, 371–383 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-014-0364-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-014-0364-4

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