Ants are equipped with a number of sophisticated navigation tools, including the ability to both learn and use vibrational and magnetic landmarks, as reported Mar. 7 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.
Cornelia Buehlmann, led by Bill Hansson and Markus Knaden of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, trained desert ants with magnetic and vibrational landmarks relative to their nest. Then they tested the ants and showed that the training did in fact help them find their nest. Importantly, they also found that the ants had no innate preference for the landmarks, indicating that the behavior was learned.
This is a channel with an ant.
(Photo Credit: Elisa Badeke Knaden: Sonia Bisch-Knaden)
Whether ants use these types of cues for navigation in the wild remains unknown, the authors write, but their results highlight the flexibility of the ants' navigation system.
Source: Public Library of Science