Imagine finding your way out of a thick jungle where everything looks blurry. And the bad news for ants is that the problem gets worse the smaller they get…We found that the smaller ants with fewer ommatidia in their eyes can only detour when they are much closer to the obstacle when compared to bigger ants with more ommatidia. On average, we found that bigger ants detour when they are 17cm away from the obstacle, as opposed to 5cm for the smaller ants. The bigger ants also look away from the nest direction earlier in their paths than the smaller ants with fewer ommatidia. This suggests that ants with smaller eyes can detect objects only when they are closer to them.
