| LiveScience.com wrote: |
Ants use an internal pedometer to find their way home without getting sidetracked, a new study reports.
Desert ants on foraging expeditions use celestial cues to orient themselves in the homeward direction, but with few landmarks in the barren land, scientists have wondered how the insects always take the most direct route and know exactly how far to march.
The new study reveals that counting their steps is a crucial part of the scheme. |
This is simply amazing. I wouldn't be able to count my own steps for more than like a minute (unless it's really important).
Unfortunately they don't mention how exactly the steps are counted - the most interesting part. Maybe they use a TI 83 Ants Edition. 
lol, i was told that the other day in relation to hiking.
you can work out your stride by getting the average of 3 100mtr walks, then every x paces youve walked 100mtrs.
the fact theyre doing something similar just shows you how clever ants really are. O.O
That's actually quite fascinating. Isn't it amazing what nature can do?
| Bondings wrote: |
| LiveScience.com wrote: | Ants use an internal pedometer to find their way home without getting sidetracked, a new study reports.
Desert ants on foraging expeditions use celestial cues to orient themselves in the homeward direction, but with few landmarks in the barren land, scientists have wondered how the insects always take the most direct route and know exactly how far to march.
The new study reveals that counting their steps is a crucial part of the scheme. |
This is simply amazing. I wouldn't be able to count my own steps for more than like a minute (unless it's really important).
Unfortunately they don't mention how exactly the steps are counted - the most interesting part. Maybe they use a TI 83 Ants Edition. |
That is fantastic. Here is a fascinating question, do they subtract steps if they backtrack, or do they have to follow the exact path they left the colony with? | LumberJack wrote: |
| Bondings wrote: | | LiveScience.com wrote: | Ants use an internal pedometer to find their way home without getting sidetracked, a new study reports.
Desert ants on foraging expeditions use celestial cues to orient themselves in the homeward direction, but with few landmarks in the barren land, scientists have wondered how the insects always take the most direct route and know exactly how far to march.
The new study reveals that counting their steps is a crucial part of the scheme. |
This is simply amazing. I wouldn't be able to count my own steps for more than like a minute (unless it's really important).
Unfortunately they don't mention how exactly the steps are counted - the most interesting part. Maybe they use a TI 83 Ants Edition. |
That is fantastic. Here is a fascinating question, do they subtract steps if they backtrack, or do they have to follow the exact path they left the colony with? |
And what if suddenly wind makes ant fly a little away? 
Odd, I'd always heard that they found their way by scent...
Ants have always been somethings interesting to study. But to think that they count their steps!!! WOW, Omg, i always go off count when i try to do so.
I'm not sure if they actually count their steps or look for their tracks. Have anyone of you ever tried wiping off the tracks from a trail of ants? You can use anything to wipe of the tracks eg. your finger and you will notice that once they reach the wiped off area.. they get confused and lost. It happens all the time.. it'll take them a while to get back on track. You'll notice that ants always follow the same track and hardly ever stray off.
| Kelvin wrote: |
| I'm not sure if they actually count their steps or look for their tracks. Have anyone of you ever tried wiping off the tracks from a trail of ants? You can use anything to wipe of the tracks eg. your finger and you will notice that once they reach the wiped off area.. they get confused and lost. It happens all the time.. it'll take them a while to get back on track. You'll notice that ants always follow the same track and hardly ever stray off. |
I have already tested it. Thats true.
They can also communicate with each other about danger, food etc. You can test it also. I tested it by catching a fly. Make an ant feel the fly. And see how it suddenly changes its movement. And how it changes another ant's mood when they come face to face. Interesting article, thanks for sharing! I've also read that ants use pheromones to lay down a scent trail for themselves and other ants to follow. I wonder how this step-counting ties in to that.
I felt horrified when I read the method used by researchers to figure out whether ants were counting their steps vs measuring the actual distance: "They glued stilt-like extensions to the legs of some ants to lengthen stride. The researchers shortened other ants' stride length by cutting off the critters' feet and lower legs, reducing their legs to stumps."
The author of the article displays equal insensitivity, describing those procedures as "a little cosmetic surgery"!
It's amazing how we feel we have the right to mutilate and torture other animals just to satisfy our curiosity. Funny how indigenous people are able to learn so much more about their world just by observing and participating, while we (civilized humans) resort to brutal experiments to learn only a fraction as much.
Scrub
^Wholehearted agreement.
People often talk about how animal testing is needed because of the benefits it gives to mankind, but how is mankind benefited by this experiment? A little trivial knowledge about ants?
| scrub wrote: |
| Funny how indigenous people are able to learn so much more about their world just by observing and participating, while we (civilized humans) resort to brutal experiments to learn only a fraction as much. |
Indigenous people could not possibly have figured out postively that some desert ants count their steps to go home, much less unraveled the mysteries of the universe. Nobody until now has truly understood the fundamental nature of light, the process of evolution, the cure for lymphoma, or the atomic engine that fuels the sun. Without science you wouldn't even be able to complain about scientists on your computer.
Regarding ants, most species do use chemical cues to lay down and follow paths towards food (among other things), and they use trail bifurcations combined with a slight preference for following obtuse-angled bifurcations to stumble home after picking up a morsel. It seems this species has some other navigational tricks up its sleeve.if it is the only thing the ants have to think about i think it would be pretty easy for them to count their steps.
So when do they grab a bunch of ants, hook them up, and create a computer ?
Surely that's possible with a basic counting/adding/subtracting mechanism in hand ...
A computer that can be powered with breadcrumbs and dead bugs 
A fascinating topic. I know that a lot of people will thjink this information is useless, but it is interesting and builds our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes understanding seemingly insignificant details like this do assist us in other things.
Just ants and bees for example help us better understand basic principles of navigation. Today we use advanced radar and satellite systems to navigate but 2-3000 years ago, humans were scared to travel in unchartered waters or leave sight of the coastline.
It's also more interesting for children who have to study science to get these tidbits of information as it makes class more interesting.
| mOrpheuS wrote: |
So when do they grab a bunch of ants, hook them up, and create a computer ?
Surely that's possible with a basic counting/adding/subtracting mechanism in hand ...
A computer that can be powered with breadcrumbs and dead bugs |
It would be slow, and cause problems if the ants got loose, but it would be interesting... | shamil wrote: |
| Kelvin wrote: | | I'm not sure if they actually count their steps or look for their tracks. Have anyone of you ever tried wiping off the tracks from a trail of ants? You can use anything to wipe of the tracks eg. your finger and you will notice that once they reach the wiped off area.. they get confused and lost. It happens all the time.. it'll take them a while to get back on track. You'll notice that ants always follow the same track and hardly ever stray off. |
I have already tested it. Thats true.
They can also communicate with each other about danger, food etc. You can test it also. I tested it by catching a fly. Make an ant feel the fly. And see how it suddenly changes its movement. And how it changes another ant's mood when they come face to face. |
I tried that too. Just let a water drop run over the ant track on a wall and watch how they get confused. Sometimes they walk all the way back and then return and whenever ant meet each other they start tapping on each other's heads with their antennas. I guess they communicate likt that ant's morse code. | defnet wrote: |
| Just let a water drop run over the ant track on a wall and watch how they get confused. |
Which would seem to contradict the counting steps hypothesis; if they were counting their steps, why would a drop of water crossing their path confuse them?I think only those particular desert ants are step-counters. I think most ants people run across are primarily following scent trails, and nothing else, other than tactile communication that defnet observed. I don't know what information they are conveying that way, but I bet someone has researched it.
It seems that some people under-estimate the power of animals. Strange when we aren't the longest living animal on the planet even when we happen to have the most advanced tools we know about at our disposal.
Actually talking about ants they're remarkable I wouldn't be surprised if ants took over as the dominant species, they could if they wanted to, they're organization skills are un-matched.
| arranf wrote: |
Actually talking about ants they're remarkable I wouldn't be surprised if ants took over as the dominant species, they could if they wanted to, they're organization skills are un-matched. |
[ODP]
Perhaps they are the dominant species...
There are more of them than there are of us.
Sure, we poison them occasionally, but we also feed them a lot, perhaps the food is worth the risk of poison, so they keep us around.
[/Oddly Paranoid Facetiousness] | ocalhoun wrote: |
| arranf wrote: |
Actually talking about ants they're remarkable I wouldn't be surprised if ants took over as the dominant species, they could if they wanted to, they're organization skills are un-matched. |
[ODP]
Perhaps they are the dominant species...
There are more of them than there are of us.
Sure, we poison them occasionally, but we also feed them a lot, perhaps the food is worth the risk of poison, so they keep us around.
[/Oddly Paranoid Facetiousness] |
*Notices Ants Around Me*
Ah, yes well that is a possibility...I am not surprised by the news at all. At the end, the power of human beings came from the nature, while other kinds of capabilities may be donated to other species (e.g. ants) from the nature. Human beings are always so proud of themselves, being so called "dominant of the world", and starting to affect the nature. I thought that they were right until I thought inside, humans are not dominanting the world! Instead, ants and other little species are still around every corner of the world. Sometimes humans even lost control of what they did, for example nuclear accident & global warming. Humans aren't dominating the world, at least the Earth.
Regards | Bondings wrote: |
| LiveScience.com wrote: | Ants use an internal pedometer to find their way home without getting sidetracked, a new study reports.
Desert ants on foraging expeditions use celestial cues to orient themselves in the homeward direction, but with few landmarks in the barren land, scientists have wondered how the insects always take the most direct route and know exactly how far to march.
The new study reveals that counting their steps is a crucial part of the scheme. |
This is simply amazing. I wouldn't be able to count my own steps for more than like a minute (unless it's really important).
Unfortunately they don't mention how exactly the steps are counted - the most interesting part. Maybe they use a TI 83 Ants Edition. |
I would personally guess that it's just instinctive, for the same type of reason that bats can do doppler radar calculations in their heads without thought, it's not that they're calc whizzes. 
Hi Gagnar,
Thanks for the clarification that the step-counting is a unique feature to this species of ant, separate from the scent-trails many ants use. That makes a lot of sense.
| Gagnar The Unruly wrote: |
Indigenous people could not possibly have figured out postively that some desert ants count their steps to go home, much less unraveled the mysteries of the universe. Nobody until now has truly understood the fundamental nature of light, the process of evolution, the cure for lymphoma, or the atomic engine that fuels the sun. Without science you wouldn't even be able to complain about scientists on your computer. |
How do you know that indigenous people couldn't have known or didn't know any of those things? I can easily imagine natives noticing that an ant with naturally damaged legs (no need to deliberately inflict the damage!) had trouble retracing its steps after the damage occurred, with 1000 steps in reverse not taking it as far as the 1000 steps before the damage. This could either be a real-time observation, or viewing tracks of the ant after it had already passed.
I've read enough stories of hunter-gatherers having knowledge our western mindset couldn't believe they have to keep an open mind myself. Things like knowing in advance when visitors will arrive in the middle of the jungle, or knowing from dreams what the coming day holds in store. On the issues of indiginous wisdom in health and knowledge-gathering, here are two excellent pages:
http://anthropik.com/2006/01/thesis-22-civilization-has-no-monopoly-on-medicine/
http://anthropik.com/2006/01/thesis-23-civilization-has-no-monopoly-on-knowledge/
I see no reason to believe that indiginous people couldn't know just as much about the nature of light and the sun, how to cure various health issues and diseases (aside of course from the vast majority of ailments which only seriously affect civilized humans), and even evolution. It's just a different way of gathering info--by actually living in and participating in the world and fully understanding everything that's going on around you, both in the physical realm and in the spiritual realm. Vs the civilized approach of disconnecting humans from nature and then carrying out information-gathering experiments in tiny reductionist bits and pieces. Given that we *don't* have the skills to observe and understand what's going on, our method of science makes sense and has its unique strengths, but it's awfully racist to think that people living in other ways aren't just as capable as we of understanding the world.
I hope that clarifies my original post!
Scrub
