Scientists have developed a small robot to understand how ants teach one another.
that use one-to-one tuition, in which an ant that has discovered a much better new nest can teach the route there to another individual.today, confirm that most of the important elements of teaching in these ants are now understood because the teaching ant can be replaced by a machine.
Prof. Nigel Franks of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences said,"Teaching is so important in our own lives that we spend a great deal of time either instructing others or being taught ourselves. This should cause us to wonder whether teaching actually occurs among non-human animals. And, in fact, the first case in which teaching was demonstrated rigorously in any other animal was in an ant." The team wanted to determine what was necessary and sufficient in such teaching.
"When the follower ant had been led by the robot to the new nest, we allowed it to examine the new nest, and then, in its own time, begin its homeward journey. We then used the gantry automatically to track the path of the returning ant." Prof. Franks explained,"A straight path might be quicker but a winding path would provide more time in which the following ant could better learn landmarks so that it could find its way home as efficiently as if it had been on a straight path."