Scientists have developed a small robot to understand how ants teach one another.The team built the robot to mimic the behavior of rock ants that use one-to-one tuition, in which an ant that has discovered a much better new nest can teach the route there to another individual.

Key to this process of teaching is tandem running where one ant literally leads another ant quite slowly along a route to the new nest. The pupil ant learns the route sufficiently well that it can find its own way back home and then lead a tandem-run with another ant to the new nest, and so on. [1]

Figure 1. Robot helps reveal how ants pass on knowledge

Figure 1 shows the researchers built a large arena so there was an appreciable distance between the ants’ old nest, which was deliberately made to be of low quality, and a new much better one that ants could be led to by a robot. A gantry was placed atop the arena to move back and forth with a small sliding robot attached to it, so that the scientists could direct the robot to move along either straight or wavy routes. Attractive scent glands from a worker ant were attached to the robot to give it the pheromones of an ant teacher. [2]

Prof. Franks explained, “We waited for an ant to leave the old nest and put the robot pin, adorned with attractive pheromones, directly ahead of it. The pinhead was programmed to move towards the new nest either on a straight path or on a beautifully sinuous one. We had to allow for the robot to be interrupted in its journey, by us, so that we could wait for the following ant to catch up after it had looked around to learn landmarks.”

“When the follower ant had been led by the robot to the new nest, we allowed it to examine the new nest, and then, in its own time, begin its homeward journey. We then used the gantry automatically to track the path of the returning ant.” [3]

The group discovered that the robotic had certainly taught the route efficiently to the apprentice ant. The ants knew their approach again to the outdated nest whether or not they had taken a winding path or a straight one.

“Crucially, we might examine the efficiency of the ants that the robotic had taught with ones that we carried to the positioning of the brand new nest and that had not had a possibility to be taught the route. The taught ants discovered their approach house far more shortly and efficiently.” [4]

References:

1. https://swifttelecast.com/robot-helps-reveal-how-ants-pass-on-knowledge/
2. https://vervetimes.com/robot-helps-reveal-how-ants-pass-on-knowledge/
3. https://mixpoint.in/plants-animals-biotechnology/2022/08/robot-helps-reveal-how-ants-pass-on-knowledge/
4. https://yarkstory.xyz/robot-helps-reveal-how-ants-pass-on-knowledge/

Cite this article:

Thanusri swetha J (2022), Robot helps reveal how ants pass on knowledge, Anatechmaz, pp.161