Desert ants use magnetic field

This is a Greece news story, published by ScienceBlog.com, that relates primarily to Desert news.

Greece news

For more Greece news, you can click here:

more Greece news

Desert news

For more Desert news, you can click here:

more Desert news

biology news

For more biology news, you can click here:

more biology news

ScienceBlog.com news

For more news from ScienceBlog.com, you can click here:

more news from ScienceBlog.com

About the Otherweb

Otherweb, Inc is a public benefit corporation, dedicated to improving the quality of news people consume. We are non-partisan, junk-free, and ad-free. We use artificial intelligence (AI) to remove junk from your news feed, and allow you to select the best science news, business news, entertainment news, and much more. If you like biology news, you might also like this article about

animals magnetoreception

. We are dedicated to bringing you the highest-quality news, junk-free and ad-free, about your favorite topics. Please come every day to read the latest Desert ants news, magnetoreception news, biology news, and other high-quality news about any topic that interests you. We are working hard to create the best news aggregator on the web, and to put you in control of your news feed - whether you choose to read the latest news through our website, our news app, or our daily newsletter - all free!

desert ants functions

ScienceBlog.com

•

Desert ants use the polarity of the geomagnetic field for navigation

Summary

Nutrition label

88% Informative

Desert ants of Cataglyphis nodus species use the Earth ’s magnetic field for spatial orientation.

But these tiny insects rely on a different component of the field than other insects.

The researchers suspect that magnetoreception in these desert ants is based on a mechanism involving tiny particles of the iron oxide mineral magnetite or other magnetic particles.

Desert ants live in the featureless salt pans of the North African Sahara or in pine forests in Greece .

When they leave the nest, they move in a zig-zag pattern, but once they have found food they return to the nest entrance in a straight line.

The discovery that ants use a different mechanism for magnetoreception other insect species such as butterflies or cockroaches opens up new avenues for studying the evolution of this form of sensory perception in the animal kingdom.

VR Score

Informative language

Neutral language

Article tone

semi-formal

Language

English

Language complexity

Offensive language

not offensive

Hate speech

not hateful