Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Ants communicating through touch. Ant communication in most species involves pheromones, which is a method using chemical trails for other ants or insects to find and follow. [1] However, ants of some species can communicate without using pheromones or chemical trails in general.
Fire ants use track pheromones to mark the path from the colony to feeding sites. Trace pheromones are mainly known in insects living in colonies, which mark their paths with low-volatile substances such as higher molecular weight hydrocarbons. Ants in particular often mark the path from a food source to the nest in this way. [77]
Trail pheromones are semiochemicals secreted from the body of an individual to affect the behavior of another individual receiving it. Trail pheromones often serve as a multi purpose chemical secretion that leads members of its own species towards a food source, while representing a territorial mark in the form of an allomone to organisms ...
Certain ants lay down an initial trail of pheromones as they return to the nest with food. This trail attracts other ants and serves as a guide. [21] As long as the food source remains available, visiting ants will continuously renew the pheromone trail. The pheromone requires continuous renewal because it evaporates quickly.
Pheromones can be used instead of insecticides in orchards. Pest insects are attracted by sex pheromones, allowing farmers to evaluate pest levels, and if need be to provide sufficient pheromone to disrupt mating. Chemical communication in insects is social signalling between insects of the same or different species, using chemicals.
Dogs have an olfactory sense 40 times more sensitive than a human's and they commence their lives operating almost exclusively on smell and touch. [1]: 247 Pheromones are the special scents that dogs use for communication. [33] Pheromones are composed of natural chemicals that mediate olfactory communication with conspecifics.
In the natural world, ants of some species (initially) wander randomly, and upon finding food return to their colony while laying down pheromone trails. If other ants find such a path, they are likely to stop travelling at random and instead follow the trail, returning and reinforcing it if they eventually find food (see Ant communication).
Pheromones are released by many social insects to lead the other members of the society to the food source. For example, ants leave a pheromone trail on the ground that can be followed by other ants to lead them to the food source. Alarm calls Alarm calls communicate the threat of a predator.