Abstract
DR. BRUN, of Zürich, has done a fine piece of work in devising an elaborate and ingenious series of experiments which enable us to come to a decision among the rival theories of way-finding among ants. Let us first illustrate the facts. If we pick up one of the higher ants from an ant-road, turn it about in a box, and then empty it out again near the place of its capture, it makes no mistake in hurrying homewards. When an ant goes off alone on an exploring adventure, it often keeps persistently in one general direction, in spite of many divagations to one side or the other, and when it turns its face homewards, it does not usually retrace its steps, but pursues a parallel course until it comes near the nest. If a higher ant, such as Formica rufa, be gently but firmly induced to travel on a path chosen for it and not by it, it makes straight for home when freed from coercion. It may run along a line which is the hypotenuse of the triangle the other two sides of which it was compelled to follow, or it may complete a polygonal figure and reach the nest. If members of such species as Formica rufa and F. sanguinea be lifted up and carried some distance and put down in hunting ground which they have not visited for a fortnight, they will return home, quickly, confidently, and by the shortest way.
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A Biological Puzzle 1 . Nature 95, 38–40 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/095038a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/095038a0