Trivia
HardResearchers Determined How Ants Navigate By Outfitting Them With?
Answer: Stilts
Ants have an uncannily precise ability to navigate back to their nests without wasting valuable energy overshooting their destination or wandering about haphazardly. For years, scientists wondered exactly how they could return home with such accuracy. While it was understood that ants utilized techniques like using the sun or other visual markers for navigation, what wasn’t understood was how using such wide area cues helped them to head straight home.
To determine if the ants were using their own bodies and cadence as a measuring tool, scientists lured ants away from a nest with food and then split the foragers into three groups. One group was left alone, one had tiny pig bristles glued onto their legs (to create tiny ant stilts), and one group had their legs trimmed shorter. The control group went straight home without a single problem, the group with the longer “stilt” legs walked more 50 percent too far due to their now lengthier stride, and the group with the shortened legs didn’t walk far enough by nearly 50 percent to get home.
The take away from the experiment is that ants have built in pedometers that help them pace off exact distances and return with uncanny precision to their nests.
Trivia
HardChildren’s Author Beatrix Potter Was Also An Accomplished?
Trivia
HardWhat Was The First Modern Web Search Engine?
Trivia
HardIn The Early 2000s, Apple Had Issues With An iBook Laptop That Smelled Like?
Trivia
HardWhich Two Comic Book Icons Shared The Same Movie Set Mansion?
Trivia
EasyWhich Of These Colors Appears With The Highest Frequency In National Flags?
Trivia
Very HardWho Is The Longest Recurring Actor In Any Video Game Franchise?
Trivia
EasyThe Maillard Reaction Is Responsible For Flavors In?
Trivia
EasyThe Sound Of Your Knuckles Cracking Is Caused By?
Trivia
HardThe Largest Network Of Recreational Trails Is Found In?