Exploring how animals navigate

The Arctic Tern migrates an extraordinarily long way—from pole to pole. And while this bird is unique in the distance it traverses, its excellent sense of direction is shared by many other animals that use a variety of ...

World's fastest ant hits recording breaking speed of 855mm/s

According to Noël Coward, mad dogs and Englishmen are the only creatures that go out in the midday sun, but Harald Wolf from the University of Ulm, Germany, would add another animal: Saharan silver ants (Cataglyphis bombycina). ...

Desert ants have an amazing odor memory

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology used behavioral experiments to show that desert ants quickly learn many food odors and remember them for the rest of their lives. However, their memory for nest ...

Reversing ants navigate successfully despite going backwards

Scampering across the salt pans of Tunisia on their spindly legs, desert ants (Cataglyphis fortis) have a single-minded mission: locate food and get it back to the nest. Normally, individual raiders bear a tasty morsel in ...

page 1 from 2