The desert ant Cataglyphis fortis, which is native to the inhospitable salt-pans of Tunisia, is already well-known for its remarkable navigational abilities. It uses a sun compass along with a step counter and visible landmarks to locate its nest (a tiny hole in the desert ground) after foraging for food. Now, researchers at the Max-Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Germany have shown that these ants have another tool in their navigational toolbox. After the scientists recently discovered that these ants also use olfactory cues to pinpoint their nests, they conducted new experiments that revealed that the ants cannot only locate an odor source, but they also use the distribution of different odors in the vicinity of their nests in a map-like manner. The scientists found that the ants need both their antennae for this odor-guided navigation, that is, they smell the landscape scenery in stereo. "We conducted two key experiments," said Kathrin Steck, a Ph.D. student at the Institute. "First we marked four odor sources surrounding the nest entrance with the substances methyl salicylate, decanal, nonanal, and indole, and got the ants trained on them. If these four odor points were shifted away from the nest in the original arrangement, the ants repeatedly headed for the odors, even though the nest wasn't there anymore. If we rearranged the odor sources relative to each other, the ants were completely confused." Therefore the researchers assumed that ants do not "think" one-dimensionally--i.e., they do not associate the nest with only one smell--but multi-dimensionally, i.e., they relate an odor “landscape” to their nest. Spatial perception can easily be acquired if two separate sensory organs are available, such as two eyes for visual orientation. In the case of the ants, this would be their two antennae.Login Or Register To Read Full Story