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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Techniques for Investigating the Anatomy of the Ant Visual System
Published on: November 27, 2017
Polarised skylight and the landmark panorama provide night-active bull ants with compass information during route
Samuel F Reid1, Ajay Narendra, Jan M Hemmi
1ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science, and Centre for Visual Sciences, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, PO Box 475, Sullivans Creek Road, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. samuel.reid@anu.edu.au
Abstract:
Navigating animals are known to use a number of celestial and terrestrial compass cues that allow them to determine and control their direction of travel. Which of the cues dominate appears to depend on their salience. Here we show that night-active bull ants attend to both the pattern of polarised skylight and the landmark panorama in their familiar habitat. When the two directional cues are in conflict, ants choose a compromise direction. However, landmark guidance appears to be the primary mechanism of navigation used by forager ants, with those cues in the direction of heading having the greatest influence on navigation. Different colonies respond to the removal of these cues to different degrees, depending on the directional information provided by the local landmark panorama. Interestingly, other parts of the surrounding panorama also influence foraging speed and accuracy, suggesting that they too play a role in navigation.
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