The effect of food preference, landmarks, and maze shift on maze-solving time in desert ants

What is it about?

Cataglyphis desert ants search for food individually, without recruitment, and are excellent navigators. We examined in the lab the ability of the ants to learn how to solve a maze with a food reward at its opposite end. The ants learned to solve a maze faster when offered a preferred food type than a less preferred one. This is after the ants’ preference was determined by a separate food preference test. Replacing a learned maze route with its mirror image increased the time taken to solve the maze or required more ants to search in the maze.

Featured Image