Susan Stephens' Writing Diary

Carrying on from our interesting discussion on the red spider mite, I thought you might enjoy this article!

Ants use an internal pedometer to find their way home without getting sidetracked, a new study reports.

Desert ants on foraging expeditions use celestial cues to orient themselves in the homeward direction, but with few landmarks in the barren land, scientists have wondered how the insects always take the most direct route and know exactly how far to march.

The new study reveals that counting their steps is a crucial part of the scheme.
The ant "pedometer" technique was first proposed in 1904, but it remained untested until now.

Scientists trained desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis, to walk along a straight path from their nest entrance to a feeder 30 feet away. If the nest or feeder was moved, the ants would break from their straight path after reaching the anticipated spot and search for their goal.

Try that on stilts

Next, the researchers performed a little cosmetic surgery.

They glued stilt-like extensions to the legs of some ants to lengthen stride.
By manipulating the ants' stride lengths, the researchers could determine whether the insects were using an odometer-like mechanism to measure the distance, or counting off steps with an internal pedometer.

The ants on stilts took the right number of steps, but because of their increased stride length, marched past their goal.

After getting used to their new legs, the ants were able to adjust their pedometer and zero in on home more precisely, suggesting that stride length serves as an ant pedometer.


So now you know!

Don't forget the winner of my Access Romance All-A-Blog winner has been announced today... winning a Starbuck's voucher and a copy of In The Venetian's Bed, along with lots of goodies including some special lucky white heather from Scotland is...
Sorry, my hero, Nico loves to tease and I've picked up his bad habits( not all of them, you understand!)
Find out at:
www.accessromance.com All-A-Blog

And now it's back to my truly frightening horse race in Niroli... with a pregant heroine and a hero who doesn't know the meaning of fear...

Have a great day everyone!
Susan