Sunday, July 09, 2006
Formidable Formicidae
Formicidae, otherwise known as ants, have always fascinated me: Their colonial behaviour, their weightlifting ability, and their absolutism of the regent. However, a recent article A Stilted Story takes the cake. Formicidologists(?) have long wondered how ants are able to migrate over relatively large distances, and then return to the colony. Well...wonder no more: Matthias Wittlinger of Ulm University, Germany has figured it out...using the tried, tested and true scientific approach of using stilts.
Be-stilting? Ants apparently have evolved to have a internal mechanism enables them to count steps. But how do you test this hypothesis?
Impressively, Dr. Wittlinger constructed a 10m tunnel, along which the ants strode to a feeding station, and correctly returned to the colony. One day, after the ants arrived at the feeding station, he then: 1) amputated (antputated?) 1/3 of the ants; and 2) constructed stilted ant legs for another 1/3, and 3) left the remaining control group alone. Those of group 1) made it only halfway home, whereas those in 2) overshot by a factor of two. The control group? Yes...made it home exactly.
That is what I call a convincing experiment, and I can only look on in jealousy of a good result :) However, I can only guess how much fun it was for his graduate students to spend weeks constructing an army's worth of ant stilts....
Be-stilting? Ants apparently have evolved to have a internal mechanism enables them to count steps. But how do you test this hypothesis?
Impressively, Dr. Wittlinger constructed a 10m tunnel, along which the ants strode to a feeding station, and correctly returned to the colony. One day, after the ants arrived at the feeding station, he then: 1) amputated (antputated?) 1/3 of the ants; and 2) constructed stilted ant legs for another 1/3, and 3) left the remaining control group alone. Those of group 1) made it only halfway home, whereas those in 2) overshot by a factor of two. The control group? Yes...made it home exactly.
That is what I call a convincing experiment, and I can only look on in jealousy of a good result :) However, I can only guess how much fun it was for his graduate students to spend weeks constructing an army's worth of ant stilts....
# posted by jondular @ 11:10 PM 
