Fig. 1.

Head movement in navigating ants. Ants were recorded walking across the normal substrate at the field site in Sevilla, under 5 load conditions (from top to bottom row): no load, small food item, medium food item, large food item and carrying another ant as shown by the images inserts. a The distribution of head angles over the entire recording. b The instantaneous head and body angle of the ant as it moved across the camera field of view (blue line—body angle and red line—head angle). Angle conventions used are shown by the insert. The head of the ant moves across a substantial pitch range and varies with load. The attitude of the head is only partially decoupled from the motion of the body indicating that there is no continuous stabilisation of gaze