在对白蚁“恐慌逃遁”行为的一项新研究中，美国路易斯安那州立大学农业中心的Gregg Henderson研究小组发现：白蚁在实验中受到惊扰时不会发生惊慌失措的现象。当遇到惊扰时，它们不会惊恐四散，或前推后拥，推推搡搡，相互踩踏。白蚁虽然生活在地下洞穴，但它们不会像人们在拥挤的剧院那样，当有人喊着火了后表现的那般惊慌失措，一片混乱。
相反，研究人员发现，当他们把110只白蚁放在圆形塑料盘中，突然摇动盘子，白蚁开始以一种极为有序的方式运动，由于工蚁与兵蚁在蚁群中的社会分工不同，惊扰之下，它们表现出不同的行为方式。
工蚁表现出单一的行为。跑在前面的工蚁决定是否左转或右转，后面的工蚁跟随着前面的工蚁，以相同的方向、相同的速度和间距行进。而兵蚁则跑到行列的两侧，露出自己巨大的下颚骨，仿佛准备作战。一圈又一圈，蚁群沿着盘子边小跑着，找不到出口，但它们也从来不疯狂地寻找一个出口。如果一只白蚁步履蹒跚，速度放缓，它身后的白蚁会停下来等待它纠正自己：不会出现踩踏行为。
以蚂蚁作为模式生物进行研究有利于人们理解生物在正常与危险状态下的行为反应。Henderson说：“白蚁是最早形成社会性的动物。2亿年的生物进化，为我们提供了许多可以通过实验进行分析的先天社会行为。”此项工蚁与兵蚁的恐慌逃遁行为研究成果日前在线发表于《昆虫科学》。
来源：中国科学报 王晨绯
Abstract
Termites were the first animal to form societies. Two hundred million years of evolution provide for a multitude of innate social behaviors that can be experimentally dissected. These fine-tuned patterns of behavior are especially interesting when observing group decision making in the panic mode. In the present study, we examined behavioral patterns of termites under panic conditions to gain insight into how an escape flow self-organizes. One hundred worker and ten soldier Coptotermes formosanus were released into agar plates. After a disturbance was created most workers followed each other and ran along the wall of dishes, thus forming a unidirectional escape flow, where as soldiers showed a significantly higher frequency of moving to thecenter of the arena or on periphery of the escape flow. Agonistic behavior was usually observedas soldiers moved to center or periphery. This is the first report on the behavioral repertoire of termites when panicked, with details on the behavioral polymorphism of workers and soldiers during an escape.
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