How Do Ants Find Food
Have you ever wondered how an ant finds food you left out so quickly? Sugar has a slight odor, especially granulated beet sugar. All species of ants can differentiate between a large variety of odors, the range is from a few centimeters to meters. A desert ant can smell a biscuit crumb from up to 3 meters away. For food sources that ants cant smell from a distance, they “smell” it (contact chemoreception) by touching it. Any way you choose to look at it, an ant finds its food by smelling.
How does the ant find sugar?
Within an ant colony, there are scout ants. These ants search for food in various directions, often from 100 to 200 meters. The scout will march in less circuitous paths first, especially if it has memory of a previous location. Ants will use visual landmarks and stereo-smell system and create an odor map. Often an ant will stop what it is doing and look for olfactory cues. After that, it will start a more circuitous random search. Once it nears the sugar and the ant can smell it, the search ends. Fire Ant Problem Mesa AZ
How does the ant scout call the other ants?
Once the food is found, the scout will take a little sample of it and march back to the colony. The ant will find the shortest route and leave a pheromone trail behind. Once the ant makes it back to the colony, the other ants will analyses the food and then take the trail that was set by the scout. As more ants get on the trail, the markings get stronger and then other ants that were searching elsewhere can smell the trail, and join them. Fire Ant Problem Mesa AZ
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