ダンゴムシの長時間行動観察のための自動計測システムの開発

抄録

Pill bugs(Armadillidium vulgare) have characteristics of alternating turn directions in encountering every T-junction. This characteristic called “turn alternation” has several meanings such as expanding movement ranges and adjusting momentums of left and right legs. Recently, several studies are conducted to observe new characteristics from long term measurements of pill bugs in successive T-maze. This study develops a new successive T-maze system that can observe turn alternation for a long time and automatically for discovery of new characteristics. The proposed system consists of a video camera for measuring positions of a pill bug, stepping motors for rotation of T-maze tables based on pill bug positions and a computer for system control. This paper introduces system configuration and preliminary experiments. Behaviors of pill bugs for about one hour were measured and “turn alternation” could be confirmed with the proposed system.