Franks Nigel R, Richardson Tom
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 IUG, UK.
Nature. 2006 Jan 12;439(7073):153. doi: 10.1038/439153a.
The ant Temnothorax albipennis uses a technique known as tandem running to lead another ant from the nest to food--with signals between the two ants controlling both the speed and course of the run. Here we analyse the results of this communication and show that tandem running is an example of teaching, to our knowledge the first in a non-human animal, that involves bidirectional feedback between teacher and pupil. This behaviour indicates that it could be the value of information, rather than the constraint of brain size, that has influenced the evolution of teaching.
蚂蚁白额窄胸蚁采用一种名为串联行走的技巧，带领另一只蚂蚁从巢穴前往食物所在地，两只蚂蚁之间的信号控制着行走的速度和路线。在此，我们分析了这种交流的结果，并表明串联行走是一种教学行为的实例，据我们所知，这是首次在非人类动物中发现的涉及教师与学生之间双向反馈的教学行为。这种行为表明，可能是信息的价值而非大脑大小的限制影响了教学行为的进化。
