Navigational Strategies of the Central Australian Desert Ant, Melophorus bagoti

Social hymenopterans employ several strategies to navigate, primarily in search of food and then to get back home. Some navigational abilities of the thermophilic ant Melophorus bagoti in the semiarid deserts of Central Australia are discussed. These solitarily foraging ants have a sense of compass direction, presumably from the perception of polarized skylight. In experimental plastic channels open to the sky, they consistently underestimate the return distance home for longer distances. Upon displacement from a feeder to an unfamiliar area, the ants first head in the feeder-to-home direction for about ~25% of the distance to home, after which they switch to searching behaviour. Ants undershoot probably because they rely more on landmarks for navigation.1 page(s