Do They Know What They Are Doing? Cognitive Aspects of Rescue Behaviour Directed by Workers of the Red Wood Ant to Nestmate Victims Entrapped in Artificial Snares.

Ant rescue behaviour belongs to the most interesting subcategories of prosocial and altruistic behaviour encountered in the animal world. Several studies suggested that ants are able to identify what exactly restrains the movements of another individual and to direct their rescue behaviour precisely to that object. To shed more light on the question of how precise the identification of the source of restraint of another ant is, we investigated rescue behaviour of red wood ant workers, using a new version of an artificial snare bioassay in which a nestmate victim bore two wire loops on its body, one (acting as a snare) placed on its petiole and an additional one on its leg.

The Effects of Ethanol and Acetic acid on Behaviour of Extranidal Workers of the Narrow-Headed Ant (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) during a Field Experiment.

Ethanol addiction belongs to the most important problems encountered in the domain of human mental health. The research on the behavioural effects of exposure to/consumption of ethanol are investigated largely with the help of animal models that also include insects, mainly fruit flies and honeybees. The effects of ethanol on ant behaviour remain, however, little known.

Human and ant social behavior should be compared in a very careful way to draw valid parallels.

Gowdy & Krall provide an interesting discussion of evolutionary origins and consequences of ultrasociality. However, some of their statements concerning various features of ant and human social behavior do not adequately reflect present knowledge about the discussed issues, which include, among others, polyethism, cultural information transfer, within-group conflicts and resistance in ant societies, and reproductive division of labor in humans. Gowdy & Krall (G&K) provide an interesting discussion of evolutionary origins and consequences of ultrasociality, an advanced form of social behavior that evolved independently in both social insects and humans.

Behavioral Reversion and Dark-Light Choice Behavior in Workers of the Red Wood Ant .

Social insect workers usually start adult life from intranidal tasks and then switch to extranidal activities, but this process may be reversed: foragers may switch again to intranidal brood care. The transition forager - reverted nurse is known as the behavioral reversion. Ant foragers are known to avoid illuminated zones less strongly than intranidal workers, but illumination responses of reverted nurses were so far never investigated.

The effects of age and past and present behavioral specialization on behavior of workers of the red wood ant Formica polyctena Först. during nestmate reunion tests.

Social insect workers usually participate first in intranidal tasks and then switch to extranidal ones. However, foragers may switch again to intranidal brood care. This process is called the behavioral reversion.

Capturing the essence of decision making should not be oversimplified.

Bentley et al. propose a thought-provoking approach to the question of causal factors underlying human choice behavior. Their map model is interesting, but too simplified to capture the essence of decision making.

The effects of serotonin, dopamine, octopamine and tyramine on behavior of workers of the ant Formica polyctena during dyadic aggression tests.

We investigated the effect of injections of four biogenic amines (serotonin, dopamine, octopamine and tyramine) on behavior patterns displayed by workers of the red wood ant Formica polyctena during dyadic confrontations with four types of opponents: a nestmate, an alien conspecific, an allospecific ant (Formica fusca), and a potential prey, a nymph of the house cricket (Acheta domesticus). Significant effects of biogenic amine administration were observed almost exclusively in the case of confrontations with allospecific opponents. Serotonin treatment exerted stimulatory effects on behavior patterns involving physical aggression (biting accompanied by gaster flexing, dragging and formic acid spraying), but these effects were relatively weak and/or documented by indirect evidence.

Brain GABA and glutamate levels in workers of two ant species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): interspecific differences and effects of queen presence/absence.

Presence of amino acid neurotransmitters gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate (Glu) in ant brains was reported in very few studies. To learn more about factors influencing GABA and Glu levels in ant brains, we applied high-performance liquid chromatography to measure levels of these compounds in single brains of workers of 2 ant species, Myrmica ruginodis (subfamily Myrmicinae) and Formica polyctena (subfamily Formicinae) taken from queenright/queenless colony fragments and tested in dyadic aggression tests consisting of an encounter with a nestmate, an alien conspecific or a small cricket. Brain glutamate levels were higher than those of GABA in both tested species.