Naked mole-rats recruit colony mates to food sources

A review of the evolutionary causes of rodent group-living

“…Computer simulations suggest that spatially clumped food resources along with hard soil conditions (due to sporadic rainfall) interact to reduce foraging efficiency, but that increased group size coupled to cooperative foraging reduces the risk of unproductive foraging (Spinks and Plagányi 1999). In fact, naked mole-rats Heterocephalus glaber recruit other group members to food sources recently discovered by successful foragers (Judd and Sherman 1996), and common mole-rats store part of their food at central common caches for later consumption ). More direct support of the aridity food-distribution hypothesis comes from the observation that social but not solitary bathyergids tend to occur in xeric habitats , Faulkes et al 1997, and that group size of mole-rat species increases with unpredictability of rainfall and with the size and patchiness of their food supply Knight-Eloff 1988, Faulkes et al 1997).…”

The role of multiple pheromones in food recruitment by ants

“…Thus, the emitter and the receiver do not need to be present simultaneously to exchange information (Hölldobler and Wilson, 1990;Nieh, 2004;Reinhard and Kaib, 2001). Recruitment pheromones are not, however, restricted to the social insects and are found in a variety of taxa (Chapman, 1998;Wyatt, 2003) including caterpillars (Fitzgerald and Costa, 1986;Fitzgerald, 1995), social spiders (Lubin and Robinson, 1982;Vollrath, 1982;Saffre et al, 1999) and mammals (Galef and Buckley, 1996;Judd and Sherman, 1996).…”

Path selection in cockroaches

“…The successive passages of individuals can induce the formation of either physical [bears (Reimchen, 1998); humans (Helbing et al, 1997)] or chemical trails [snakes (Greene et al, 2001); gastropods (Chelazzi, 1992); rats (Galef and Buckley, 1996); naked-mole rats (Judd and Sherman, 1996)]. It is in insects that the contribution of trails to animal orientation has received the most attention.…”