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First published online June 11, 2007
Journal of Experimental Biology 210, 2025-2032 (2007)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2007
doi: 10.1242/jeb.000315

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Commentary

Novel landmark-guided routes in ants

T. S. Collett^*, P. Graham and R. A. Harris

University of Sussex, School of Biological Sciences, Biology Building, Brighton, Sussex, BN1 9QG, UK

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: t.s.collett{at}sussex.ac.uk)

Accepted 21 March 2007

We review studies in which ants familiar with fixed routes between their nest and a feeding site are displaced from one of these destinations to an unfamiliar site away from the route. Ants can reach their goal from such novel release sites guided by distant landmarks. We suggest that an ant's ability to take such novel landmark-guided routes after displacement is a by-product of the robustness of normal route-following and is unlikely to reflect the ant's use of a map-like knowledge of its surroundings.

Key words: ant navigation, landmarks, novel routes

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