Functional characteristics of photoreceptors in the compound eye and ocellus of the desert ant,Cataglyphis bicolor

Mote, Michael I.; Wehner, Rüdiger

doi:10.1007/bf00656918

Cited by 72 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Much less is known about the polarisation sensitivities of ocelli. Mote and Wehner (1980) discovered that the ocellar photoreceptors of the diurnal desert ant Cataglyphis are highly sensitive to polarised light. In a later study, it was found that after foraging these ants are able to find their way back to the nest using the ocelli alone, implying that the ocelli are capable of analysing the pattern of skylight polarisation (Pent and Wehner, 1985).…”

Section: A Nocturnal Ocellus-based Navigation System?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocellar optics in nocturnal and diurnal bees and wasps

Warrant

Kelber

Wallén

et al. 2006

Arthropod Structure & Development

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Section: A Nocturnal Ocellus-based Navigation System?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocellar optics in nocturnal and diurnal bees and wasps

Warrant

Kelber

Wallén

et al. 2006

Arthropod Structure & Development

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“…By contrast, desert ants show sensitivity solely in the ultraviolet (UV) (∼ 350nm) and green (∼ 510nm) wavelengths [17,11]. The effectiveness of these two wavelengths for sky detection was investigated in [16] using a custom sensor with one photodiode sensor for each.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sky segmentation with ultraviolet images can be used for navigation

Stone¹,

Mangan²,

Ardin³

et al. 2014

Robotics: Science and Systems X

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Abstract-Inspired by ant navigation, we explore a method for sky segmentation using ultraviolet (UV) light. A standard camera is adapted to allow collection of outdoor images containing light in the visible range, in UV only and in green only. Automatic segmentation of the sky region using UV only is significantly more accurate and far more consistent than visible wavelengths over a wide range of locations, times and weather conditions, and can be accomplished with a very low complexity algorithm. We apply this method to obtain compact binary (sky vs non-sky) images from panoramic UV images taken along a 2km route in an urban environment. Using either sequence SLAM or a visual compass on these images produces reliable localisation and orientation on a subsequent traversal of the route under different weather conditions.

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“…Studies on Formica polyctena (Menzel and Knaut, 1973) and Cataglyphis bicolor (Mote and Wehner, 1980;Paul et al, 1986) suggest that formicine ants are dichromats with ultraviolet (UV) and green colour channels. Accordingly, the colours of the light panels were chosen to be easily discriminable by the ants' UV and green photoreceptors.…”

Section: Colour Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Do wood ants learn sequences of visual stimuli?

Riabinina

Ibarra

Howard

et al. 2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Wood ant (Formica rufa L.) colonies were kept in the laboratory in 550l plastic containers on a 12h:12h day:night cycle and provided with sucrose solution, water and frozen crickets. For a few days before Accepted 20 May 2011 SUMMARY The visually guided foraging routes of some formicine ants are individually stereotyped, suggesting the importance of visual learning in maintaining these routes. We ask here whether the wood ant Formica rufa learns a sequence of visual features encountered at different stages along a route, as reported for honeybees. We trained ants in several simple mazes to follow two alternative routes. Along each two-stage route, the ants first encountered one of two priming stimuli. The identity of the priming stimulus determined which of two choice stimuli was rewarded in the second stage of the route. As stimuli we used ultraviolet and yellow/green light panels, and two black-and-white patterns. Did ants learn to pair each colour with the appropriate black-andwhite pattern? Ants learnt readily to discriminate between the two coloured stimuli or between the two black-and-white patterns. They could also pair coloured and black-and-white patterns, provided that the two were presented simultaneously. The ants' behaviour with sequential stimuli varied according to whether the priming stimulus was a coloured stimulus or a black-and-white pattern. When the priming stimulus was coloured, ants seemed to learn the two sequences, but tests showed that their success was probably caused by the after-effects of colour adaptation. With a black-and-white priming stimulus and a coloured second stage stimulus, robust sequential learning could not be demonstrated, although under certain experimental conditions a tiny proportion of ants did acquire the sequence. Thus, ants perform conditional discriminations reliably when priming and choice stimuli are simultaneous, but they usually fail when the stimuli are sequential.

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Functional characteristics of photoreceptors in the compound eye and ocellus of the desert ant,Cataglyphis bicolor

Cited by 72 publications

References 14 publications

Ocellar optics in nocturnal and diurnal bees and wasps

Ocellar optics in nocturnal and diurnal bees and wasps

Sky segmentation with ultraviolet images can be used for navigation

Do wood ants learn sequences of visual stimuli?

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