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AROUND THE WORLD 2: Ants That Teach

If you've ever wondered how ants seem to know exactly where you've placed your picnic basket, researches in London have just solved the mystery.  Nigel Franks and Tom Richardson at Bristol University announced Wednesday that they have discovered that ants can teach one another where to locate food.

The researchers clarified that the observed behavior was not simply imitation, because the ant with the knowledge of food retrieved other members of the colony and actually led the way.  Furthermore, proof of teaching methods was deduced from the fact that were an individual ant to go alone to the food, it would have retrieved faster than with a partner.  However, though individually they may have moved slower, the colony could gather food more rapidly by teaching large forces of ants.

The "leader" ants, as they were called, would retrieve a "follower" ant and would slow down when their pupil was lagging behind. Once the path to nourishment was learned, the follower ant would transform into a leader ant and then recruit more students.  This pattern of behavior leads to the classic pattern of ants in a line that is known as tandem running.

--Written by Morgan Diamond

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