Abstract
Experimental evidence of information transmission in ants is considered, from early experimental results to the general experimental paradigm elaborated later in the long-term “binary tree” study. Methodological details are presented, as well as the results of experiments in which ants were confronted with a rather complex life-or-death task: they could obtain food only in a “binary tree” maze by means of distant homing, lacking a possibility to use odour trails. Only scouting ants appeared to be capable of remembering sequences of turns towards the target and sharing this information with members of their constant team of foragers. A new battery of tests revealed characteristic features of scouts, such as intelligence, exploratory activity, bravery without self-sacrifice, high frequency of switching between activities and faithful interest to the variety of stimuli.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Atsarkina N, Iakovlev I, Reznikova Z (2014) Individual behavioural features of scouts and recruits in red wood ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Euroasian Entomol J 13(3):209–218. in Russian with English summary
Bonavita – Cougourdan A, Morel L (1984) Les activites antennaires au cours des contacts trophallactique chez la Fourmi Camponotus vagus Scop. Ont-elles valeur de signal? Insect Soc 31:113–131
Bradley GA, Hinks JD (1968) Ants, aphids, and jack pine in Manitoba. Can Entomol 100:40–50
Coulon M, Deputte BL, Heyman Y, Baudoin C (2009) Individual recognition in domestic cattle (Bos taurus): evidence from 2D-images of heads from different breeds. Plos One 4(2):e4441
Dlussky GM, Volcit OV, Sulhanov AV (1978) Organization of group foraging in ants of the genus Myrmica. Zool J 57:65–77 (In Russian with English summary)
Gazda SK, Connor RC, Edgar RK, Cox F (2005) A division of labour with role specialization in group–hunting bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) off Cedar Key, Florida. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 272(1559):135–140
Iakovlev IK (2010) Ethological aspects of task specialization in red wood ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) colonies. Proc Russ Entomol Soc 81(2):180–187
Kendrick KM, da Costa AP, Leigh AE, Hinton MR, Peirce JW (2001) Sheep don’t forget a face. Nature 414(6860):165–166
Lenoir A (1982) An informational analysis of antennal communication during trophallaxis in the ant Myrmica rubra L. Behav Processes 7(1):27–35
Liang ZS, Nguyen T, Mattila HR, Rodriguez-Zas SL, Seeley TD, Robinson GE (2012) Molecular determinants of scouting behavior in honey bees. Science 335(6073):1225–1228
Mordvilko AK (1936) Ants and aphids. Priroda 4:44–55. (In Russian)
Novgorodova TA (2006) Experimental investigation of information transmission in Formica pratensis (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) using “binary tree” maze. Entomol Rev 86(3):287–293
Novgorodova TA (2015) Role of social and individual experience in interaction of the meadow ant Formica pratensis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) with ladybird imagines and hoverfly larvae. Insect Sci 22(3):440–450
Packer C, Ruttan L (1988) The evolution of cooperative hunting. Am Nat 132(2):159–198
Parr LA, Winslow JT, Hopkins WD, de Waal F (2000) Recognizing facial cues: individual discrimination by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). J Comp Psychol 114(1):47
Reznikova Zh (1979) Spatial orientation and logical skills in ants. In: Plehanov GF (ed) Ethology of insects and ticks. Tomsk State University, Tomsk, p 18–24. (in Russian)
Reznikova Z (1983) Interspecies relations in ants. Nauka, Novosibirsk, 205 pp. (in Russian)
Reznikova Z (2007a) Animal intelligence: from individual to social cognition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Reznikova Z (2007b) Dialog with black box: using Information Theory to study animal language behaviour. Acta Ethologica 10(1):1–12
Reznikova Z (2008) Experimental paradigms for studying cognition and communication in ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Myrmecol News 11:201–214
Reznikova Z (2011) Division of labour and communication at the individual level in highly social Formica ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Russ Entomol J 20(3):315–319
Reznikova Z, Dorosheva H (2004) Impacts of red wood ants Formica polyctena on the spatial distribution and behavioural patterns of ground beetles (Carabidae). Pedobiologia 48(1):15–21
Reznikova Z, Dorosheva E (2013) Catalog learning: carabid beetles learn to manipulate with innate coherent behavioral patterns. Evol Psychol 11(3):147470491301100304
Reznikova Z, Novgorodova TA (1998) Individual task allocation and information transmission in ants’ working groups. Adv Curr Biol 118:345–356. (in Russian with English summary)
Reznikova Z, Ryabko B (1986) Investigations of ant language by methods of Information Theory. Probl Inf Transm 21:103–108
Reznikova Z, Ryabko B (1994) Experimental study of the ants communication system with the application of the Information Theory approach. Memorabilia Zoologica 48:219–236
Reznikova Z, Ryabko B (2001) A study of ants’ numerical competence. Electron Trans Artif Intell B 5:111–126
Reznikova Z, Ryabko B (2003) In the shadow of the binary tree: of ants and bits. In: Anderson C, Balch T (eds) Proceedings of the 2nd Internat. Workshop of the mathematics and algorithms of social insects. Georgian Institute of Technology, Atlanta, pp 139–145
Reznikova Z, Ryabko B (2011) Numerical competence in animals, with an insight from ants. Behaviour 148(4):405
Ryabko B, Reznikova Z (1996) Using Shannon Entropy and Kolmogorov Complexity to study the communicative system and cognitive capacities in ants. Complexity 2:37–42
Ryabko B, Reznikova Z (2009) The use of ideas of information theory for studying “language” and intelligence in ants. Entropy 11(4):836–853
Tautz J (2008) The buzz about bees: biology of a superorganism. Springer Science & Business Media. Springer, Heidelberg
Tibbetts EA (2002) Visual signals of individual identity in the wasp Polistes fuscatus. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 269(1499):1423–1428
Van der Velden J, Zheng Y, Patullo BW, Macmillan DL (2008) Crayfish recognize the faces of fight opponents. PLoS One 3(2):e1695
Wasmann E (1899) Die psychischen Fähigkeiten der Ameisen. Zoologica 26:1–133
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Reznikova, Z. (2017). Language Behaviour in Ants. In: Studying Animal Languages Without Translation: An Insight from Ants. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44918-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44918-0_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-44916-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-44918-0
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)