Desert ants are known to use landmarks (reference points), pedometers (memorising step counts), and optic flow (rate of passing objects across its eye to estimate navigation speed) to navigate across deserts. A desert ant is trained to walk 100 m from its nest to a feeder in an artificial arena as depicted in the schematic. The arena had a single tall landmark placed at 40 m from the nest. At the feeder, certain mani

Step-by-step solution

Distance from the nest to the feeder is 100 m. The landmark is at 40 m from the nest, which means it is 100 - 40 = 60 m from the feeder. The ant uses the landmark exclusively for long-distance ( > 55 m) navigation. Since the distance from the feeder to the landmark is 60 m ( > 55 m), the ant will use the landmark to navigate exactly 60 m from the feeder. From the landmark, the remaining distance to the nest is 40 m. Since 40 m 1. Pedometer estimate: The ant memorized the number of steps required to cover 40 m. Beca