Desert ants perceive odor maps in stereo and use this information for navigation

Desert ants are well-known for their remarkable orientation: they use a compass along with a step counter and visible landmarks to locate their nest. After researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology discovered that these ants can navigate also by using olfactory cues, they now found that the animals even can take advantage of the distribution of different odors in a map-like manner by utilizing their antennae to smell their environment in stereo.

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