ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour... with a few extra crackers...

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A little birdie told us you just love reading about experiments.

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Hit pause and enjoy this puppy. It's a freebie.

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Which of the following adaptations to the experiment would test whether the ants were

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using visual cues to return to the nest?

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And here are the potential options...

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Here's our chance to modify the experiment! We get to PLAY GOD...

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Those scientists had all of the fun, designing an apparatus for

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falling ants -- now it's our turn...

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But what exactly is the question asking us to do?

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Looks like we need to change the experiment so that we can determine whether or not the

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ants are using visual cues to return to the nest.

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Hmm...key word: visual. tVisual means relating o sight...

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...so making the gap larger, option A, doesn't do anything to test if the ants are using visual cues.

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Don't we all close our eyes when we're falling?

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What about B? Removing leaves from the foraging ground...well, that has nothing to do with

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vision or returning to the nest...

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A double negative...in this case, it does not make a positive...

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Moving on to C. Should we repeat the same experiment in the dark?

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Well, what's the difference between light and dark? If the ants are using visual cues,

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then they can only see them... in the light!

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So if we want to test the ants to find out if they're using visual cues, we should do

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the experiment in the dark and see if the ants can get back to their nest.

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C's our answer!

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And if we want to look at option D...

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removing all of the ants from the apparatus probably wouldn't help us.

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But hey, if we're bored and feel like playing God some more...

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