Question

Ants usually go in line to reach sweet kept in tin....how do they know way to reach tin

Answer 1

Ants have four to five times more odor receptors than most other insects, a team of researchers has discovered.

The research team, led by Lawrence Zwiebel at Vanderbilt, recently completed the first first full map of olfactory system that provides ants with their sense of taste and smell. They found the industrious insects have genes that make about 400 distinct odorant receptors, special proteins that detect different odors. By comparison, silk moths have 52, fruit flies have 61, mosquitoes range from 74 to 158 and the honeybee has 174.

“The most exciting moment for me was when the analysis came back showing that we had identified more than 400 OR genes, the largest number of any known insect species,” said Xiaofan Zhou, the research associate who headed up the characterization process. “It meant that we had successfully taken the first step toward gaining a new level of understanding of the complex social system that has made ants one of the most successful families on the planet.”

Answer 2

Pheromones help ants keep track of food and also direct each other through their environment. When searching for food, antswill walk around randomly (“scouting”). Each ant leaves a trail of pheromone as it searches for food. When an ant finds food, it can follow its own trail back to the nest