This interactive exercise complements a web page describing the use of ethological techniques to investigate animal behaviour. |
Tinbergen's experiment
on home location by digger wasps
Adult female
digger wasps, Philanthus triangulum, build nests
in sand. The nest consists of an entrance tunnel leading to several
'rooms' each containing a developing larva. The wasp catches bees on
hunting trips and stores this food in each room occupied by a larva.
This behaviour begs several questions:
Point to ponder:
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Tinbergen carried out an elegant experiment to answer the last question:
Training conditions
Testing conditions
Results
These diagrams show the arrangement of pine cones during training and testing. The animation shows the wasp's flight behaviour during training and test conditions. You may need to watch it repeat a few times to understand what is going on.
Solution
: When the cones drenched in pine oil (scented plates)
were moved to one side of the real nest and the pine-cone circle and
non-scented plates to the other, the wasp choose to alight on the pine
cones. She ignored the scented plates. References: Tinbergen, 1951. The Study of Instinct . Oxford University Press, London. Tinbergen,
1974. Curious Naturalists, Penguin Education,Middlesex. |
Points to ponder:
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Interactive learning activity Tinbergen conducted a further experiment to see if wasps use scent to navigate.
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Key to moveable
elements |
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Scented plates | Nest | Unscented plates | ||
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Nest |
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