...Johanna Tross; Harald Wolf; Sarah Elisabeth Pfeffer ABSTRACT Desert ants show a large range of adaptations to their habitats. They can reach extremely high running speeds, for example, to shorten heat stress during foraging trips. It has recently been examined how fast walking speeds are achieved...

... in conflict for homing desert ants ( Melophorus bagoti ). In the first experiment, ants learned to navigate out of a round experimental arena with a distinctive artificial panorama. On crucial tests, we rotated the arena to create a conflict between the artificial panorama and celestial information...

... of returning has to be weighed against the chance of finding food elsewhere and the resources available. Desert ants Cataglyphis fortis are well-studied examples when it comes to navigating back and forth between their nest and a foraging area, due to their primary reliance on path integration in the open...

...? Desert ants are particularly well suited for pursuing this question because of their primary reliance on path integration in open and featureless desert habitats. Path integration has been studied particularly with regard to homing after lengthy foraging trips. The ants also use path integration...

...Cornelia Bühlmann; Ken Cheng; Rüdiger Wehner SUMMARY Two species of desert ants – the North African Cataglyphis fortis and the central Australian Melophorus bagoti – differ markedly in the visual complexity of their natural habitats: featureless salt pans and cluttered, steppe-like terrain...

...Kathrin Steck; Matthias Wittlinger; Harald Wolf SUMMARY Desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis, use a stride integrator as a distance gauge in their well-studied path integration system (while a skylight compass provides the direction gauge). To further scrutinize the mechanisms of the ant odometer, we...

... area, the Australian route-following desert ant Melophorus bagoti relies on the path integrator and consistently travels half the distance of the outward trip. However, when both the outward and inward trips are performed in plain and featureless channels, which blocks the distinct terrestrial visual...

...-dimensional (3-D) path integration of the(formicine) desert ant, Cataglyphis fortis . Cataglyphis judge the ground distance when travelling over hills, allowing correct homing even in (unpredictably) uneven terrain. We eliminated the function of these hair sensors in graviception either by shaving the hairs...

...Matthias Wittlinger; Rüdiger Wehner; Harald Wolf SUMMARY Desert ants, Cataglyphis , use path integration as a major means of navigation. Path integration requires measurement of two parameters, namely,direction and distance of travel. Directional information is provided by a celestial compass...

...B. Ronacher; E. Westwig; R. Wehner SUMMARY When performing foraging trips desert ants of the genus Cataglyphis continuously process and update a `home vector' that enables them to return to their nest on the shortest route. This capacity of path integration requires two types of information: (i...

...M. Collett; T. S. Collett; S. Chameron; R. Wehner SUMMARY It is often suggested that animals may link landmark memories to a global coordinate system provided by path integration, thereby obtaining a map-like representation of familiar terrain. In an attempt to discover if desert ants form...

.... In either case, the ants define their courses within allocentric systems of reference. Here, we show that desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis , forced to run along a devious path can use egocentric information as well. The ants were trained to deviate from their straight homebound course by a wide inconspicuous...

...T. S. Collett; M. Collett; R. Wehner ABSTRACT Desert ants ( Cataglyphis fortis ) were trained to follow a fixed route around a barrier to a feeder. Their homeward trajectories were recorded on a test field containing a similar barrier, oriented either as in training or rotated through 22 or 45...

...Harald Wolf; Rüdiger Wehner ABSTRACT Desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis , search for a repeatedly visited food source by employing a combined olfactory and anemotactic orientation strategy (in addition to their visually based path-integration scheme). This behaviour was investigated by video-tracking...