Desert navigator ant is a 3-star species card from the Space Age. Desert ants find home by counting steps and reading the sun.
Bonus by grade
| Grade | Copies needed | Bonus |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 0 | +12% fewer explorers lost |
| Uncommon | 2 | +21.6% fewer explorers lost |
| Rare | 5 | +36% fewer explorers lost |
| Epic | 10 | +54% fewer explorers lost |
| Legendary | 20 | +84% fewer explorers lost |
Duplicates raise the grade: Uncommon at 2, Rare at 5, Epic at 10, Legendary at 20.
Codex
- Common: Cataglyphis fortis lives in the salt pans of North Africa.
- Uncommon: Experiments showed it measures distance by counting steps.
- Rare: It uses the sun's polarised light as a compass.
- Epic: It also learns landmarks near the nest.
- Legendary: It can head straight home after wandering a winding path, a skill called path integration.
Field notes are reviewed regularly. Spot something wrong? Tell us.
Field guide
| Size | Workers about 6–9 mm long (older description) |
| Colony | Not well known |
| Queens | Not well known |
| Nest | Underground burrows in salt pans |
| Diet | Scavenges dead insects and other arthropods |
| Defence | Not well known; no danger to people reported |
| Active | Day only, foraging in the hottest part of the day |
| Lifespan | Foragers live about 6 days on average; they remember food smells up to 25 days |
| Where it lives | Salt pans and desert in Tunisia and Algeria, with records from Iraq |
Did you know?
- Workers can learn up to 14 different food smells.
- They scavenge in the hottest hours, when many of their predators are sheltering from the sun.
- Besides two big eyes, it has three tiny simple eyes on top of its head.
Sources: antwiki.org, en.wikipedia.org, nottingham.ac.uk
Codex sets
- Ants of the stars: Pavement ant, Desert navigator ant, Dinosaur ant, Driver ant, Jet ant, Hokkaido wood ant, Big-eyed jumping ant, Tiny trap-jaw ant, Door-head ant
Queen affinity
- Black garden ant: ×1.1 chance
- Meat ant: ×1 chance
- Bull ant: ×1 chance