A research by the University of California, Riverside, has unveiled that ants can be announced as experts when it comes to sniffing out body odor. Ants are able to recognize small chemical changes in the pheromones that other ants produce.

The research published in the journal Cell Reports said that using this ability, ants are able to recognize each other in their massive colonies. Study researchers said there are some insects, like ants, which are able to detect each other' smell through sensors fitted in their antennae.

With an aim to know how the ants react to different odors, study researchers carried out an experiment. In it, the researchers stuck tiny glass electrodes into single sensory hairs on the insects' antennae and they were exposed to puffs of different hydrocarbons.

Electrodes acted like sensors, which unveiled whether each antennae was responding and also to know whether the ant had recognized a smell. It was found that ants are quite sensitive to chemical changes. Sensory neurons were responding to different hydrocarbon odors.

In the next experiment, the researchers wanted to know whether or not the ants understood the actual chemical compound. Therefore, they paired one hydrocarbon with a sugary reward and another one with plain water.

"We found that the ants were really superb at being able to make [their] way to the hydrocarbon that had originally been paired with the reward", said study's lead researcher Anandasankar Ray from the University of California, Riverside. Ants were found to be experts when it came to differentiating among body odors.