Category Archives: Vision

Humans commonly use landmarks for navigation. We routinely focus on nearby objects such as buildings to guide our navigation. Don’t all animals navigate using nearby landmarks? Apparently not. A group of scientists* tested desert ants, Melophorus bagoti, to determine if … Continue reading →

Desert ants are fascinating organisms for studying navigation because they inhabit an environment with few local cues but impressive distant visual cues such as tall mountains. Navigating back to the nest after foraging can be challenging with few local cues. … Continue reading →

Insect vision is not good at imaging fine detail, but it does provide a wide angle view of the environment. Insects, including ants, can use a UV/Green receptor system to accurately detect the line between earth and sky. UV light … Continue reading →

The Swiss Entomologist, Felix Santschi, is best remembered for his studies of ant navigation. In the deserts of Tunisia, ants are surrounded by sand that offers few landmarks for guidance. He hypothesized that the ants might use the sun for … Continue reading →

There is a growing consensus that most insect brains do not process 3 dimensional objects the way the human brain does. Producing 3 dimensional objects requires many more brain cells than an insect has. Instead, insects use the two dimensional … Continue reading →

Butterfly wings have been described as “billboards” advertising the species and properties of the owner. Butterfly wings have an overall color motif, but also smaller patches of color. These color spots can signal male or female as in the cabbage … Continue reading →