Picnic Ants

1. Picnic Ants Zachary Noonon

2. How do ants find food? • Find food source • Bring food back to the mound • Pheromones Images: http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/howAnts.shtml

3. What do ants eat? • 12000 species- Will eat anything • Most ants like fruits, honey, and sugar • Honeydew as central diet • Some ants prefer greasy foods, meat or fungus • Omnivorous scavengers Image: http://www.pestnet.com/ants/what-do-ants-eat/

4. Experiment Overview • Why did I choose this experiment? • Hypothesis: • Ants will be most attracted to foods that contain natural sugars, such as fruit, and least attracted to whole grains, greasy, or processed foods

5. Materials • Ants • Strawberry • Banana • Cheerios • Peanut Butter Crackers • Pepperoni

6. Experimental • Look for an ant mound • Place foods equidistant around the ant mound • Observe the trends and food preference

7. Results: Mound 1 • 2 mins- Ants were checking out all of the foods • 12 min- Interest in the cheerios, banana, and strawberry faded • 17 min- ants only seem interested in the pepperoni and peanut butter crackers • 25 min- ant swarms form and continue • 30 min- no change

8. Results: Mound 2 • 2 mins- ants find food • 15 min- the same trends formed but the ants were interested in the cheerios, crackers, and pepperoni • 22 mins- crackers were preferred most while the pepperoni and cheerios attracted some attention • 30 min- no change

9. Conclusion • Hypothesis Predictions: • Fruits (Banana, Strawberry) • Cheerios • Peanut Butter Crackers • Pepperoni • Results: • Peanut Butter Crackers • Pepperoni • Cheerios • Banana/Strawberry

10. Changes • Try fruit with different ripeness • Variable distances from mounds • Time of day • Different locations

11. Questions?