Ants Can Anticipatively and Correctly Increment the Last Quantity of a Learned Arithmetic Sequence

It has previously been shown that Myrmica sabuleti ant workers trained to an increasing (1 to 4) or decreasing (5 to 2) arithmetic sequence can expect that the next quantity will be larger or smaller. Here we show that they anticipate the exact next quantity by correctly incrementing the last quantity of the learned sequence by +1 or -1 and not by +2 or -2. Correctly anticipating the following quantity in an arithmetic sequence may result from the ants’ ability of acquiring conditioning, of memorizing lived events, and of perceiving the running time.