How lost “passenger” ants find their way home

Abstract

Animal navigation has fascinated biologists and engineers for centuries, and some of the most illuminating discoveries have come from the study of creatures with a brain no larger than a sesame seed. In an elegant recent study, Pfeiffer and Wittlinger (Science, 353, 1155–1157, 2016) have shown the means by which desert ants, carried from one nest to another by a relative, find their own way back home if they are accidentally dropped en route.