Anabaseine, whose chemical analog GTS-21 stimulates the nicotine receptor sites in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and helps reduce memory loss, is one of four components found by Cornell researchers in secretions from the poison glands of A. rudis ants, a common species in the Northeast United States. Synthetic versions of anabaseine can be made much more easily for medicinal purposes. Friedrich Kern, a visiting scientist in chemistry who observed A. rudis ant behavior in the laboratory as well as in wooded areas near Ithaca, described how one chemical cocktail serves several purposes for the ants. The ant marks the route by dragging its sting along the ground like an ink pen and leaves traces of this four-part chemical cocktail from its poison gland. Then they attack the prey with their stings, inject a neurotoxin that paralyzes muscles and drag the prey back to the nest.
Ants use receptors on their antennae to follow recruitment pheromone trails.
Gas chromatographic and mass spectrometric analyses in the Cornell laboratory identified four components in the multipurpose fluid from the ants' poison glands. Further studies with the ants showed that the four chemicals together act synergistically and that individual chemicals do not induce the same behavioral response. Here we have pyridine-based alkaloids that appear in tobacco leaves, in marine worms as defensive compounds and in ants to help them obtain food.