If the insects have small sponges or pieces of paper, they go on these objects to use honey to suck on and to transport it to their nest.
That report Hungarian researchers in the scientific journal Animal Behaviour.
The behavior of the ants is special, since sponges and paper do not occur in the natural environment of the insects.
Dish
At the research laboratory at the University of Szeged were ants faced with platters of honey and water. In addition to the dishes layers of different objects with which the insects the liquids to their nest could carry, such as bits of wood, paper and sponge.
The insects chose quickly for the materials with which they make the honey and the water, the easiest thing could suck up. They transported the fluids, especially with pieces of sponge and paper to their nest.
The scientists were surprised that the animals so quickly, the best tools were selected out of some materials that they never before had seen. Ants have a small brain that only about 250,000 brain cells that counts. “But these animals perform in many areas as good or even better than humans,” says biologist Valerie Banschbach on news site New Scientist.
Gastro
The scientists, from Hungary, suggests that the ants in the course of evolution, have learned to use tools to the transport of food, because they have a small stomach that is not stretchable.
They can not, therefore, at one time large quantities of food to work, but need a supply of food laying in their nest. “They must therefore come up with a way to get liquid food to carry,” said lead researcher Patrizia d ” Ettorre.
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