ABSTRACT
Little is known about the importance of established trunk trails in the discovery of new food sources by foraging leaf-cutting ants. Cherrett (1968) and Stradling (1978) studied the foraging behavior of Atta cephalotes, and concluded that the majority of scouting activity takes place along the length, or at the extremity of trunk trails. This conclusion is supported by subsequent studies on Atta sexdens (Fowler and Robinson 1979) and Atta colombica (Shepherd 1982), which suggest that scouting is trail centered, a strategy termed “area-restricted search” (Fowler and Stiles 1980, Shepherd 1982).
