Manantantman

Ants can get their bearings whatever the orientation of their body, new research shows. Their brains may be smaller than the head of a pin, but ants are excellent navigators that use celestial and terrestrial cues to memorize their paths. To do so, they use several regions of the brain simultaneously, proving once again that the brain of insects is more complex than thought.

A team has demonstrated that the ants use celestial cues to maintain their bearing while walking backwards. These new findings show that the ants’ spatial orientation relies on multiple mental representations and memories woven together through a flow of information between several areas of their brain. This offers a whole new perspective on the world of insects,  which is much more complex than previously believed.