ODOR MEMORY—THE SECRET OF DESERT ANTS' SURVIVAL?

Cataglyphis fortis ant on sand.
Cataglyphis fortis ant
Desert ants leaving and returning to the nest.

Cataglyphis fortis is an ant found in the North African desert. It uses its sense of smell to find food and the way to its nest. You see similar ants in deserts around the world.

Navigating in the vast salt pans of the Tunisian Sahara is a not a simple task. The ant searches for food over a wide area. And there is just a tiny hole in the desert surface to its underground nest.

If it was not for its keen sense of smell, it could get lost after looking for food. By noting the scent of its nest before it goes to foliage, it can find its nest again by following odor-based clues.

In a new study, researchers found that desert ants learn food odors quicker than nest odors. Moreover, they remember the food odors all their life.

During the investigation, ants ignored foreign odors. However, after exposing the ants to food crumbs scented with the smell, they responded to the odor from a test-stick two meters away. The fragrances were brown in the direction of the ants by the wind.

Researcher Markus Knaden and his colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology employed 30 odors to test the ants from the North African desert. The researchers found that ants could remember particular scents 25 days later.

Ants use different parts of the brain for food and nest odors. The size of the brain related to food odors is more significant than that dealing with nest odors.

The reason for the difference in is simple. Ants follow smell-based clues to locate the entrance of their nest. And the odor of the nest is unlikely to change when ants go foraging. In contrast, ants meet and must remember many food scents all their lives to survive.

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