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by viraptor 352 days ago
The lack of information in ant trails (beyond "it exists here") leads to death spirals https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mill
2 comments
fmbb 351 days ago
The very first sentence of the article you linked says this happens because they lose the pheromone track.
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viraptor 351 days ago
It does, but the original paper is not as certain. (https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/8...) It suggests that the following is done "both chemically and tactually" in case of a circular path, although with just a minimal test.
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deadbabe 351 days ago
How could they encode some kind of directional information into a trail?
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