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exceeds the average expected lifespan of about six days before they tend to be killed by predators. Researchers were consequentially stunned that ants who had reached over four times the average expected age could still remember what they learned. Puzzled at this, they reasoned that it makes sense due to food being unpredictable, and the ants may come across several different food items in a single foraging run while nest scents tend to remain the same and will not drastically change during any given ant's lifetime.
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210:. By doing this the ant can venture far from its nest in search of food. Because of the blistering heat, it can only do this for about 3–5 minutes/day (the hottest time of the day, when all its predators are in hiding from the sun). When the ant finds a dead insect it then looks at the sun and because of its periodic references to the sun's angle it knows exactly what the shortest route back to the nest is. Researchers from the
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is capable, as well, of memorizing up to 14 different food odors which seemingly exceeds its requirements for survival. Workers from a colony were presented with several different food odors and were observed to remember them for up to 25 days following their initial introduction to the odor, which
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to count its steps in a harsh environment where odors quickly vanish, enabling it to "count back" to its nest. When stilts were glued on to the ants legs, they overshot the distance of their nests, while ants with cut legs traveled short of their nest. It's suspected that while the ants unlikely
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This ant ventures far from its burrow in the Sahara Desert, which has almost no identifiable features. While venturing out it periodically takes measurements of its angle in respect to the
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have also verified that desert microhabitats have unique odour signatures that can guide the ants back to the nest.
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to travel farther from its nest than any other creature that lives in the Sahara, with respect to size.
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386:"The desert ant odometer: a stride integrator that accounts for stride length and walking speed"
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have the brainpower to literally count steps, they are somehow doing it intuitively.
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This skill, which has also been observed in the behavior of foraging honey
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Wittlinger, Matthias; Wehner, Rüdiger; Wolf, Harald (2007-01-15).
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434:"Ants, Wildebeest, Penguins, and More: A Zoo of Animal Designs"
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309:, use olfactory landmarks to pinpoint the nest"
303:Steck, K.; Hansson, B. S.; Knaden, M. (2009).
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212:Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
197:Navigation skills and internal pedometer
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233:The ant appears to use an internal
360:"Ants use pedometers to find home"
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358:Khamsi, Roxanne (29 June 2006).
305:"Smells like home: Desert ants,
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390:Journal of Experimental Biology
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642:Taxa named by Auguste Forel
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637:Insects described in 1902
202:Measuring the sun's angle
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32:Scientific classification
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632:Insects of North Africa
189:where they forage dead
627:Hymenoptera of Africa
326:10.1186/1742-9994-6-5
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461:at Wikimedia Commons
313:Frontiers in Zoology
185:, the ants inhabit
479:Cataglyphis fortis
458:Cataglyphis fortis
436:. 2 November 2018.
307:Cataglyphis fortis
274:Cataglyphis fortis
247:Cataglyphis fortis
170:Cataglyphis fortis
151:Cataglyphis fortis
25:Cataglyphis fortis
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594:Open Tree of Life
471:Taxon identifiers
455:Media related to
403:10.1242/jeb.02657
177:in the subfamily
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396:(2): 198–207.
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133:C. fortis
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16:Species of ant
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367:. Retrieved
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542:iNaturalist
242:Food memory
223:Cataglyphis
181:. Found in
120:Cataglyphis
105:Subfamily:
89:Hymenoptera
622:Formicinae
616:Categories
285:31 January
268:Bolton, B.
254:References
191:arthropods
179:Formicinae
109:Formicinae
99:Formicidae
69:Arthropoda
494:Q13457185
412:0022-0949
235:pedometer
229:Pedometer
187:salt pans
127:Species:
55:Kingdom:
49:Eukaryota
560:10217558
488:Wikidata
420:17210957
345:19250516
270:(2015).
95:Family:
65:Phylum:
59:Animalia
45:Domain:
534:1319621
336:2651142
183:Tunisia
161:, 1902)
115:Genus:
85:Order:
79:Insecta
75:Class:
599:629495
586:606542
573:576574
547:204062
521:464076
418:
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280:AntCat
555:IRMNG
369:5 May
319:: 5.
159:Forel
581:NCBI
568:ITIS
529:GBIF
508:RRP2
416:PMID
408:ISSN
371:2016
341:PMID
287:2015
219:bees
516:EoL
503:CoL
398:doi
394:210
331:PMC
321:doi
208:Sun
175:ant
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295:^
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317:6
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157:(
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
