Abstract
In contrast to flying insects, in which distance estimation is visually mediated, self-induced image motion and use of familiar landmarks are known to play a minor role in ants. Here we show that strictly diurnal Cataglyphis cursor ants can gauge with accuracy the distance they have travelled even in complete darkness in the absence of any other cues, i.e. chemical or protocounting information. Thus, an ant’s odometer is a vision-independent system based on proprioceptive cues, implicating some form of step counting, which remain to be elucidated.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to three anonymous referees for comments and corrections. We thank Eric Le Bourg and Martin Giurfa for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the article and to Gérard Latil for laboratory breeding of Cataglyphis cursor ants and helping with the experimental set up.
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Thiélin-Bescond, M., Beugnon, G. Vision-independent odometry in the ant Cataglyphis cursor. Naturwissenschaften 92, 193–197 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-005-0609-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-005-0609-1