Mutant Ants Wander (VIDEO)

NYU Langone Health / NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Caption

Three mutant ants in a colony were engineered to lack the orco gene that enables their 'sense of smell.' As ants communicate using pheromones, these ants become unable to interact with others or find their way home by following pheromone tracks. In the movie, three mutant ants were tracked using a three-color code (e.g. ORR for Orange-Red-Red), and found to wander outside of the nest, and without foraging for food.

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NYU School of Medicine

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