Hello ,

One of the most fascinating behaviours of ants are when they follow a trail to and from a food source, to collect the food and carry it back to their nest. Have you ever wondered how this process is set in motion?

Many people know that ants lay down a pheromone trail or a "scent trail" that the ants follow. But this is not just random, because imagine the difficulties that would be encountered if all the scouts laid down a pheromone trail for others to follow as they leave the nest in random directions.

Ant's are capable of using the sun as a navigational compass. They are able to determine the direction they are heading away from the nest as they leave and then to keep track of where the nest is. Only when a food item is too large for the ant to recover on its own, will the ant return to the nest and lay down a pheromone trail to recruit more ants to assist.

Some ant species cannot lay a pheromone trail, and thus the worker that discovers the food will go back to the nest and recruit a number of ants from the nest to assist in the collection of the food. Matebele ants are a good example of such a species that does not lay pheromone trails, but gathers a hunting party to attack, slaughter and gather termites to feed the colony.

As we have seen in the previous newsletters with the dragonflies and their level, the moths and light, and now the ants and the sun and pheromone trails, insect navigation is much more complex than what one imagines when you encounter a trail of ants.

Weekly Top Shot: The red faced jumping spider!