[ExI] ants again

[Natasha Vita-More]

If they aren't smart in the darkness than why are they always maching one by
one down into the earth
to get out of the sun?

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/antsgo.htm


Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 10:13 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] ants again


spike wrote:
> This is part of what I am hoping to find out: if the ants supplement 
> their pheromone signals with visuals.  There is a difference in 
> activity levels as a function of light level, so that suggests some
connection.

It could be just temperature: being poikilothermic, insects tend to speed up
a lot when there is more heat. It is very visible here in the UK. My
nemesis, Notiophilus biguttatus, is absurdly fast during sunny days.

> Of course ants
> can navigate in zero light conditions as you found on your last visit 
> to
> California.*

But obviously they aren't very smart in the darkness :-)


> I need to study the literature to see if anyone has under any 
> circumstances managed to get one-way trails.  If so, one could perhaps 
> collect a tiny sample of the go-home pheromone, identify its chemical 
> nature, synthesize it in the lab, then spray it in a room, at which 
> time all the ants present would go home.  But if the keilbasa model is 
> true, they will not go.  If it is a non-directional food-or-home 
> single pheromone, it might make the problem worse, or could explain an 
> odd phenom that you also discovered at my own home.*

According to this paper,
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/106588115/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETR
Y=0
the common garden ant uses isocoumarin (R)-1 for trails (and I think that is
your species). Other species have other, but somewhat similar-looking,
molecules.

This paper seems to give support to the keilbasa theory, at least in one
species (the forest ant)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7066/abs/438302a.html
and this other paper argues (in a third species)
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(05)01412-0
something similar. Now we just need experiments.

I'm very much an armchair entomologist... until the insects start climbing
over me. Then I turn into an entomological paparazzi.


> Anders I think you are just irresistable to bugs.

Just look at my code :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/2667127147/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/2871378208/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/3011623026/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/3622584790/

--
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University


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