How Do Ants Know Trigonometry?

Think of yourself as a desert ant. You leave your nest to search for food early in the morning in the deserts of Tunisia, except you do not know where to find food. You, therefore, walk randomly in the desert in a circuitous outward path from your nest until you find food. If you would find food, how do you get it back to your home? How do you go back without having left for yourself any traces or signs in the wasteland, without knowing where you located, and most importantly, without ending up stranded in the scorching heat of the desert? Could you accomplish coming back each day with food? Well, desert ants can.

To find out how ants can do this, scientists observed their behavior, and surprisingly they have found that ants did not follow back on the same trail they randomly took after they left their nests. Instead, ants took a direct route as if they already knew where the nest was exactly located. How do these ants find the closest way and shortest distance to their nest from their current locations? Former studies had found that red and forest ants secrete a chemical substance to mark their paths. They leave a trail of chemical scents or visual traces behind them — like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to help you find your way home. However, the structure of desert sands and conditions are not consonant with containing chemicals that will carry an odor or leave visual cues. Even if such…