非洲的撒哈拉沙漠可能缺少地標(biāo),，但它卻是各種氣味的“大雜燴”,。
據(jù)美國(guó)《科學(xué)》雜志在線(xiàn)新聞報(bào)道,，土壤中的裂縫,、一塊小木頭以及灌木叢，所有這一切都釋放著特殊的氣味,。沙漠螞蟻(Cataglyphis fortis)能夠利用這些氣味找到自己的家門(mén),。在此之前，研究人員認(rèn)為它們只能夠利用視覺(jué)線(xiàn)索來(lái)完成這項(xiàng)工作,?？茖W(xué)家表示，氣味線(xiàn)索在炎熱的沙漠中遲早能夠派上用場(chǎng),，這是因?yàn)槲浵佔(zhàn)陨淼纳锼睾茈y維持足夠長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間,。研究人員在2月27日出版的《動(dòng)物學(xué)前沿》雜志上報(bào)告了這一發(fā)現(xiàn)。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
Frontiers in Zoology 2009, 6:5doi:10.1186/1742-9994-6-5
Smells like home: Desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis, use olfactory landmarks to pinpoint the nest
Kathrin Steck , Bill S Hansson and Markus Knaden
Background
Cataglyphis fortis ants forage individually for dead arthropods in the inhospitable salt-pans of Tunisia. Locating the inconspicuous nest after a foraging run of more than 100 meters demands a remarkable orientation capability. As a result of high temperatures and the unpredictable distribution of food, Cataglyphis ants do not lay pheromone trails. Instead, path integration is the fundamental system of long-distance navigation. This system constantly informs a foraging ant about its position relative to the nest. In addition, the ants rely on visual landmarks as geocentric navigational cues to finally pinpoint the nest entrance.
Results
Apart from the visual cues within the ants' habitat, we found functional olfactory landmark information with different odours coupled to various ground structures. Here we show that Cataglyphis ants can use this olfactory information in order to locate their nest entrance. Ants were trained to associate their nest entrance with a single odour. In a test situation, they focused their nest search on the position of the training odour but not on the positions of non-training odours. When trained to a single odour, the ants were able to recognise this odour within a mixture of four odours.
Conclusions
The uniform salt-pans become less homogenous if one takes olfactory landmarks into account. As Cataglyphis ants associate environmental odours with the nest entrance they can be said to use olfactory landmarks in the vicinity of the nest for homing.
