Ants Use Scents Like Road Signs

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @03:33PM from the I-use-a-similar-method-to-gaurd-my-office dept.

Ant writes "Animal Planet mentions ants scouting for food place a tiny scent marker on branches that do not lead to a reward. This was according to a study published on Thursday in Nature, the weekly British science weekly. The pheromone acts like a "no entry signal" to other ants, telling them not to waste their time going down that route, it says. The discovery was made by animal scientists at Britain's University of Sheffield. Seen in The Ant Farm's and Myrmecology's Message Board forum thread."

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Feynmans Ants by Midnight+Warrior · 2005-11-30 15:40 · Score: 3, Informative

Why is this new? Richard Feynman talked about ants long time ago. Even as far back as when he was a kid, as he discusses in his book Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman (which has the text of the book, and this section, about 1/3 of the way down). First non-lamer post.