{"id":385,"date":"2023-04-26T11:45:01","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T11:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestexterminatorprices.com\/?p=385"},"modified":"2023-04-26T11:46:59","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T11:46:59","slug":"ants-use-signals-when-looking-for-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestexterminatorprices.com\/ants-use-signals-when-looking-for-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Ants Use Signals When Looking for Food"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Ants are essentially scavengers. Their meals are unpredictable and scattered. Yet even in the hottest and coldest parts of the Earth, ants are able to find their meals and bring them back to their nest. One has to wonder, how are ants able to find their meals quickly and often times with great success?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Behavioral biologist Markus Knaden and his team spent 2 summers studying ants on Tunisia\u2019s salt pans. Because it\u2019s impossible to put a tracking device on the ants directly, the scientists went with them when they foraged for food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team placed dead insects in various areas of the salt pans, from just a few meters to over 1000 meters from the nest to find out how far these critters would travel to find food and how much time it would take them to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team found that ants covered distances ranging from 32 meters to as far as 1,238 meters. In the farthest distances the bait (dead insects) was found in 15 minutes, but on average it took them only 4 minutes to find food. It\u2019s interesting to note that the ants only approached the food after passing it downwind and going through some odor molecules from the food. They didn\u2019t notice it while passing the food upwind even if they were in close proximity. This strongly suggests their ability to find food is based on their sense of smell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the data gathered by the researchers, the ants could pick up a scent from over 3 meters away to as far as 6 meters away. They also estimated that during food runs, ants forage areas of approximately 1,500 square meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n