title: Behavior of Ants Escaping from a Single-Exit Room.
abstract: To study the rules of ant behavior and group-formation phenomena, we examined the behaviors of Camponotus japonicus, a species of large ant, in a range of situations. For these experiments, ants were placed inside a rectangular chamber with a single exit that also contained a filter paper soaked in citronella oil, a powerful repellent. The ants formed several groups as they moved toward the exit to escape. We measured the time intervals between individual escapes in six versions of the experiment, each containing an exit of a different width, to quantify the movement of the groups. As the ants exited the chamber, the time intervals between individual escapes changed and the frequency distribution of the time intervals exhibited exponential decay. We also investigated the relationship between the number of ants in a group and the group flow rate.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Shujie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Center of Crisis and Hazard Research, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lv
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Weiguo
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Song
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D008124:Locomotion / Q000502:physiology*; D023421:Models, Animal; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D013995:Time