Do meal worms have a sense of direction?
Goal: In this experiment we had created a maze out of cardboard material to see if two of the meal worms would be able to maneuver themselves through the maze. We had rubbed a piece of fruit along the trail to see if that would entice the meal worms to finish the path.
Materials: Cardboard maze, orange slice
Hypothesis: We predicted that with the with the fruit trail the meal worms would follow the maze through until the finish line with no difficulty.
Procedure: First, we rubbed a piece of an orange along the correct path out of the maze and then we placed the meal worms at the starting point of the maze. Once placed in the maze we did not touch them again until the end of the experiement so as to allow them to follow the path until the end point, at their own speed. Process repeated with each mealworm.
Observations: Neither meal worm finished the maze and had difficulty with following the path. Both worms tried to escape over the sides of the walls, and through small cracks near the bottom edges.
Results: None of the mealworms completed the maze, and as we know that they have a sense of taste and smell this may indicate that they were not hungry, or were simply attempting to escape from the light or that they just do not enjoy mazes!
Independent Variables: Type of fruit used, age of fruit, light exposure/amount of darkness
Dependent variables: Reaction of mealworms