A few grains of sugar fall while tea is being made, or crumbs from a sweet collect at the corner of a table, and rows of ants seem to appear from nowhere. They follow an apparently precise route straight to the food. How ants find such tiny, nearly invisible particles so quickly has long prompted curiosity.
Researchers say ants use specialized antennae to sense contact with the floor and chemical changes in the air. They can readily detect odors and chemical signals that humans do not notice.
Powerful smell and genetic capacity
The ants that enter kitchens do not belong to a single species. Researchers have observed that nearly all ant species follow a series of steps when searching for food.
Studies in India have found more than 800 ant species and subspecies in the country, including at least 34 species found in human settlements.
The antennae are central to an ant’s search for food. Research has found a large number of odor-sensitive genes in ant genomes.
A Vanderbilt University study published in PLOS Genetics in 2012 said ants had four to five times as many odor receptors as other insects. What seems like an ordinary kitchen to a person is a field rich with chemical information to an ant.
Special taste receptors and a search engine
A 2021 study of fire ants indexed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine found a distinctive relationship between sweet substances in the insects’ diet, taste receptors on their antennae and their front legs.
Ant colonies depend on sugar and other sweet substances for energy and survival, but sweet odors do not travel far through the air. Specialized sensory systems therefore come into play. Taste receptors on an ant’s antennae can detect minute sugar particles as soon as they touch food. Scientists have likened these receptors to a natural search engine.
Natural GPS and pheromone signals
Pheromones, a type of chemical signal, explain how an entire colony reaches food after one ant finds it.
According to the U.S. Agricultural Research Service and research published in Physiological Entomology in 2009, a scout ant that finds food lays a chemical trail on the floor as it returns to the colony.
Entomologists say the pheromone trail functions much like GPS or Google Maps. Other ants follow the chemical route in a line to reach the correct location.
Scientists at the Forest Ecology Research Centre in Goa said ants’ entire communication system depended on chemical signals and touch. Damage to their antennae can make survival impossible. A combination of odor-related genetic traits, search-engine-like antennae and precise chemical navigation enables ants to find tiny particles of sweets anywhere in a home.
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