Learning walks in an Australian desert ant, Melophorus bagoti.

ABSTRACT: The central Australian ant Melophorus bagoti is the most thermophilic ant in Australia and forages solitarily in the summer months during the hottest period of the day. For successful navigation, desert ants of many species are known to integrate a path and learn landmark cues around the nest. Ants perform a series of exploratory walks around the nest before their first foraging trip, during which they are presumed to learn about their landmark panorama. Here, we studied 15 naive M. bagoti ants transitioning from indoor work to foraging outside the nest. In 3-4 consecutive days, they performed 3-7 exploratory walks before heading off to forage. Naive ants increased the area of exploration around the nest and the duration of trips over successive learning walks. In their first foraging walk

SUBMITTER: Deeti S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8407660 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature