Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 280, Issue 1765, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2013.0683
Keywords
visual homing; navigation; differential GPS; landmark panorama; image difference function; Myrmecia croslandi
Categories
Funding
- Australian Research Council's (ARC) Centres of Excellence Scheme [CEO561903]
- ARC Discovery Project grant [DP0986606]
- ARC Discovery Early Career Award [DE120100019]
- Hermon Slade Foundation
- Australian Research Council [DP0986606] Funding Source: Australian Research Council
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Ants are efficient navigators, guided by path integration and visual landmarks. Path integration is the primary strategy in landmark-poor habitats, but landmarks are readily used when available. The landmark panorama provides reliable information about heading direction, routes and specific location. Visual memories for guidance are often acquired along routes or near to significant places. Over what area can such locally acquired memories provide information for reaching a place? This question is unusually approachable in the solitary foraging Australian jack jumper ant, since individual foragers typically travel to one or two nest-specific foraging trees. We find that within 10 m from the nest, ants both with and without home vector information available from path integration return directly to the nest from all compass directions, after briefly scanning the panorama. By reconstructing panoramic views within the successful homing range, we show that in the open woodland habitat of these ants, snapshot memories acquired close to the nest provide sufficient navigational information to determine nest-directed heading direction over a surprisingly large area, including areas that animals may have not visited previously.
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