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Abstract:
The desert ant Cataglyphis inhabits the arid environment of North Africa where it forages individually for dead arthropods. Because of the ants' high motivation to find the nest entrance and due to the almost lab-like conditions of their environment - the flat salt pan (where visual information and partly also olfactory information available to a homing ant can be easily manipulated) - Cataglyphis has become an important model for animal navigation. So far, we know a lot about how Cataglyphis uses path integration and learns visual and olfactory cues to return to its nest entrance after far-reaching foraging runs. We know, however, less regarding the neuronal processes involved in both path integration and landmark acquisition. In this article I discuss recent progress in molecular and neurophysiological techniques in other insect species. I furthermore speculate how these techniques might - in a hopefully not too far future - help us pinpointing the neuronal circuits involved in the fascinating navigation and learning capabilities of Cataglyphis.
