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How to Design Experiments in Animal Behaviour

5. How Do Ants Estimate the Distance Walked?

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Abstract

In this article, I will describe experiments designed to understand how ants estimate the distance they have walked. They rival in their simplicity, the experiments described in my previous article, designed to understand how bees estimate the distance flown. Although ants can also use optic flow to estimate distance, in the absence of optic flow cues and of pheromone/chemical trails, as may sometimes be the case in the desert ants, Cataglyphis, ants estimate the distance walked, not by the energy expended but, believe it or not, by ‘counting’ (or integrating) the number of steps they have taken. This was proved by showing that ants on stilts (elongated legs) overshot the required distance to return home while ants on stumps (shortened legs) undershot the required distance.

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Suggested Reading

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Acknowledgement

I thank Rüdiger Wehner, Harald Wolf and T N C Vidya for many helpful comments on this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560 012, India

    Raghavendra Gadagkar

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  1. Raghavendra Gadagkar
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Correspondence to Raghavendra Gadagkar.

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Raghavendra Gadagkar is DST Year of Science Chair Professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Honorary Professor at JNCASR, and Non-Resident Permanent Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study), Berlin. During the past 40 years he has established an active school of research in the area of animal behaviour, ecology and evolution. The origin and evolution of cooperation in animals, especially in social insects, such as ants, bees and wasps, is a major goal of his research. http://ces.iisc.ac.in/hpg/raghhttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/RaghavendraGadagkar

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Gadagkar, R. How to Design Experiments in Animal Behaviour. Reson 24, 875–889 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-019-0850-0

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