Vector navigation in desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis: celestial compass cues are essential for the proper use of distance information |
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Authors: | Stefan Sommer Rüdiger Wehner |
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Institution: | (1) Institute of Zoology, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland |
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Abstract: | Foraging desert ants navigate primarily by path integration. They continually update homing direction and distance by employing
a celestial compass and an odometer. Here we address the question of whether information about travel distance is correctly
used in the absence of directional information. By using linear channels that were partly covered to exclude celestial compass
cues, we were able to test the distance component of the path-integration process while suppressing the directional information.
Our results suggest that the path integrator cannot process the distance information accumulated by the odometer while ants
are deprived of celestial compass information. Hence, during path integration directional cues are a prerequisite for the
proper use of travel-distance information by ants. |
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