Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #03386
To: "beam list" beam@corp.sgi.com
From: "Burken" burken@hotbot.com
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 09:11:15 -0700
Subject: [alt-beam] Ant vision
I recently read an interresting article about ant vision. This ant species lives in the desert, where pheromon trails would evaporate rapidly. Turns out they use vision for orientation instead. The lover part of the ants eyes looks at the ground and registers distance travelled. The middle part checks the horizon for landmarks. And the upper part , and this is the neat thing, can actually see the polarization of the sunlight as a grid on the sky. The ant uses this as compass, taking into consideration the time of the day.
There were also a team of scientists who was going to build a robot with the same sensors as the ant and run some sort of simulation on it. Perhaps ants don't have such poor vision after all, only different....
Richard Stockstad
---
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