Ant collective navigation in complex environments
Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
Longhorn crazy ants are highly efficient at joining forces to collectively move objects much too heavy for any single individual. However, simply getting a load to move is not enough: the ants’ goal is to deliver this load to their nest. Furthermore, natural environments are typically complex such that the available routes are far from evident. Nevertheless, crazy ants appear to be highly adept at overcoming these navigational challenges. In this talk, we will go over several such challenges and describe semi-natural experiments that teach us about the ants’ collective tactics when confronting these challenges.