Irradiation and Cold Exposure in Learning and Exploratory Behaviour of the Ants, Monomorium Floricola and Monomorium Pharaonis

Abstract

A preliminary experiment testing the relative effects of microwave irradiation, food and water deprivation, and confinement in an enclosed space upon 24 Monomorium floricola and of cold exposure for 24 Monomorium pharaonis on learning and exploratory behaviour in a cross- and a T-maze was conducted. Although these variables induced no observable effects on learning, exploratory behaviour as measured by left and right turns in the microwave experiment and running speed in the cold exposure experiment was significantly increased. These results were interpreted in terms of evolutionary adaptation of the Formicoidae (using formic acid instead of water-based circulatory plasma) to environmental extremes present in the primeval terrestrial habitat. It was concluded that the adaptive limits of living forms may be found primarily in the maintenance of biochemical systems understood in terms of their retention of structural order and coherence of their molecular physics within the limits of ambient environmental parameters.