Movie 2

Tracking of ants procuring brood to calculate handling duration and exit speed.
The ants procuring pupae are tracked using MtrackJ plugin of ImageJ using the videos obtained during the experiment. The tracks are used to calculate handling duration and exit speed during the pupae procurement during brood theft, brood rescue and brood transport during nest relocation. In the video, an ant marked blue-blank-blue (B-B) is rescuing a pupa from a brood plate. The handling phase of the rescue event is denoted by the red portion of the track (numbered 1) and the exit phase is denoted by the yellow portion of the track (numbered 2). The ant is tracked by tracking the middle point of its body, so that the displacement of the ant due to its rotation at a point can be minimized. The exit phase starts when the ant starts moving out of the plate, and the tracking is stopped when the ant goes out of the field of view of the camera.

Caught red-handed: behaviour of brood thieves in an Indian ant

Bishwarup Paul, and Sumana Annagiri

Journal of Experimental Biology 2019. 222:None-None; doi: 10.1242/jeb.193755