Ants That Can Count

thisIsOdd writes "NPR had a recent report about scientists at the University of Ulm who suggest that ants in desert environments count to help them get to and from their homes. Because the desert's windiness and sandiness is not conducive the 'smell-trail' method, where ants squeeze certain glands that leave a chemical trail, scientists were puzzled by the fact that these desert ants were able to leave and successfully return to their nest. The theory is called the 'pedometer theory,' and the experiment used to test it involves manipulating the leg length of some of these ants. Ants with longer legs would pass the nest on the way home, and ones with shorter legs came up... well... short."

Comments

Re:This is oooold news

[thePig]

Thank you.
The comments in the old /. article are worth a read.
Esp.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=189951&cid=15635693
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=189951&cid=15634139
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=189951&cid=15634257

Makes an interesting read. Also, good to have a comparison between the average quality of comments from 06 and 09 in /.

Re:This doesn't prove ants can count

[4D6963]

No, you misread, he said that when you move an ant, they act like they haven't been moved. They don't get home, they go where they think home is without taking into account the offset taken when they were moved, which means they're blindly walking back with no regard for environmental clues.