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Can Ants See, Smell, Or Hear? Interesting Facts About Ants
Can Ants See, Smell, Or Hear?
Ants are incredible animals when you take the time to learn about them. They’re incredible at building complex nests. They have an uncanny ability to find previously trodden tracks. They’re even known to find their way into people’s pantries when searching for food. But how do ants accomplish all these tasks? What senses do they use? Can they see, smell, or hear the world around them?
Can Ants See?
You may not have seen any eyes if you’ve looked at an ant closely because their entire bodies are a dark color. This might give you the impression that ants can’t see. Yet that isn’t true. Ants do actually have eyes. They just happen to be small and blend into the ant’s dark body.
While most ant species can see, their sight is only good for a foot or two. That isn’t exactly very far. Other ant species might be completely blind, especially those that live exclusively underground.
Can Ants Smell?
Ants have an incredible sense of smell. In fact, research shows that ants can smell better than most other insects. Their sense of smell is perhaps their most important sense of all. It allows them to find food, communicate with each other, and search for a mate.
An ant does most of its smelling with its antennae. Smell particles, called pheromones, enter their antennae. The smell then gets collected into their memory and even sends a signal through their brain. This is how an ant decides what to do.
What’s incredible is that ants use this to communicate with each other. Ants are known to leave a scent-trail to food sources. Other ants will eventually pick up the smell of the trail and realize that they should follow it to get food.
That’s why ants are so great at finding food. The entire colony gets alerted whenever a single ant finds something interesting.
Can Ants Hear?
Ants don’t have ears. Without ears, it seems pretty reasonable to think that ants can’t hear at all. Yet that isn’t the case. Ants might not be able to hear sounds the way we do, but they have an interesting substitution. Instead of hearing sounds through the air as we do, ants are able to feel vibrations in the ground through their legs.
They’re able to make sounds by rubbing together different parts of their bodies.
While this seems pretty unusual to us, it’s actually a very effective method of hearing. Ants can use this to communicate with each other across long distances because sounds travel faster and farther through the ground than through the air.
This means that a single ant can effectively alarm the entire colony if they find something wrong, helping ants quickly work together to solve any problems the colony faces.
An Ant’s Senses
Ants may not be able to see, smell, or hear the way we do, but they still have their own means of sensing the world around them. In fact, their methods help them communicate well with each other, which ultimately drives their little societies.
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