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That is super cool. Unfortunately I cannot access the original article to see the methodology, but they mention using a system that can track individual ants in
by mallomarmeasle 3mo ago
That is super cool. Unfortunately I cannot access the original article to see the methodology, but they mention using a system that can track individual ants in a colony of ~100.
I wonder what kind of biometrics allow that. The ants do not seem to be tagged individually in the linked video: https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/fileadmin/uniwue/2026/0702Ameisen-Pflegerinnen.mp4 https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/fileadmin/uniwue/2026/0702Ameis...
Not to be too speciesist, but the ants kind of all look the same to me.
- mmooss 3mo agoI was wondering about the same thing. From the OP: "... the team examined six colonies, each comprising 110 ants .... Using a fully automated tracking system, the researchers were able to precisely monitor the movements and hundreds of thousands of interactions of each ant, as well as their wound care, over a period of weeks." I wonder about the background of that software - how does it work, who developed it, how much does it cost, how much data does it output? It's applications are profound, including for human privacy, but I think I already knew about its use there.
- downwithbgp 3mo agoYou don't need access to the paper, their methodology is explained in the SI: https://www.pnas.org/doi/suppl/10.1073/pnas.2614400123/suppl_file/pnas.2614400123.sapp.pdf https://www.pnas.org/doi/suppl/10.1073/pnas.2614400123/suppl...