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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 21, 2026

Visual Classical Conditioning in Wood Ants

Visual Classical Conditioning in Wood Ants

Published on: October 5, 2018

Individual ant workers show self-control.

Stephanie Wendt¹, Tomer J Czaczkes²

¹Animal Comparative Economics Laboratory, Department of Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Regensburg, D-93053 Regensburg, Germany wendtstephanie@outlook.de.

Biology Letters

|October 13, 2017

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Black garden ants demonstrate self-control by choosing better food rewards further away. This research highlights invertebrate self-control, moving beyond traditional animal studies.

Keywords:

Lasius niger ants foraging behaviour impulsivity self-control spatial discounting

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Area of Science:

Behavioral Ecology
Animal Cognition
Invertebrate Behavior

Background:

Self-control in animals is crucial for resource management.
Traditional intertemporal choice tasks may underestimate animal self-control.
Invertebrate self-control remains largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate self-control in the black garden ant (Lasius niger).
To assess ant decision-making in a spatial discounting task.
To differentiate self-control from simple preference for known resources.

Main Methods:

Individual Lasius niger workers were presented with a spatial discounting task.
Ants chose between a high-quality reward far from the nest and a poor-quality reward near the nest.
A control condition offered rewards of equal quality at different distances.

Main Results:

69% of ants chose the better, more distant reward over the poorer, closer one.
83% of ants chose the closer reward when both options were of equal quality.
Results suggest Lasius niger exhibits genuine self-control.

Conclusions:

Lasius niger workers display significant self-control in foraging decisions.
Spatial discounting tasks reveal more apparent self-control than intertemporal choice tasks in ants.
This study provides evidence for self-control in invertebrates, expanding our understanding of animal behavior.