How Do Ants See? (BioE 80 Spr2015)

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tsihavong

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We started our Foldscope adventure blindly, collecting slides of random plants and mineral samples just in case they turned out to be usable. In the end, we had four slides featuring: blade of grass, flower petal, dirt, skin. None seemed interesting enough for our exploration. Then, an ant crawled onto my leg and our prayers were answered. Watching the ant move on my leg led me to wonder: How could ants sense where they are going? How do they know when they approach a barrier? To answer my question, I carefully trapped the ant on my leg and created a slide (making sure it was alive throughout the process). Then I watched as the ant moved around on the slide. We found that ants have eyes that are very large relative to their bodies, and that these eyes are made up of many smaller eyes that allow them to have precise vision. In this way, ants are a lot like flies—their large collection of eyes allows them to quickly sense motion and respond. This is interesting because the ant’s eye originally appeared to be one large eye, and only upon further investigation (and higher resolution images) could the smaller eyes be made out. In the end, our brave ant test subject didn’t make it, but the data it provided for us will live on.
Contributors: Taylor Sihavong
(Other group member: Carolyn Rice)

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