Neuroethology of the Waggle Dance: How Followers Interact with the Waggle Dancer and Detect Spatial Information

• Main Authors: Hiroyuki Ai, Ryuichi Okada, Midori Sakura, Thomas Wachtler, Hidetoshi Ikeno
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-10-01
• Series: Insects
• Subjects: honeybee; waggle dance; distance information; brain; antenna-mechanosensory center; vibration; sensory processing; standard brain; computational analysis; polarized light processing
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/10/10/336

Since the honeybee possesses eusociality, advanced learning, memory ability, and information sharing through the use of various pheromones and sophisticated symbol communication (i.e., the “waggle dance”), this remarkable social animal has been one of the model symbolic animals for biological studies, animal ecology, ethology, and neuroethology. Karl von Frisch discovered the meanings of the waggle dance and called the communication a “dance language.” Subsequent to this discovery, it has been extensively studied how effectively recruits translate the code in the dance to reach the advertised destination and how the waggle dance information conflicts with the information based on their own foraging experience. The dance followers, mostly foragers, detect and interact with the waggle dancer, and are finally recruited to the food source. In this review, we summarize the current state of knowledge on the neural processing underlying this fascinating behavior.