Few animals brave the midday heat of the Sahara desert. An exception is the silver ant, which chooses this time of d...

shunhe on August 17, 2020

Hi @EmmaDivito,

Thanks for the question! So let’s walk through the stimulus here. We’re told that it’s super hot in the middle of the day in the Sahara. Few animals go out, but the silver ant does so that it can scout for food. But even it can succumb to the heat.?
So now we’re asked for why the ant would scavenge at this time. Take a look at (A), which tells us that the chief predators of the silver ant must take cover from the sun during midday. This would definitely help to explain this choice of time. Normally, the silver ant would have to hide from its predators. But during this time of day, the predators are all hiding away from the sun. So this is the silver ant’s chance to go around and scavenge for food without having to worry about its chief predators. That’s a pretty good reason for this time, and so helps to explain it.

Now take a look at (E), which tells us that silver ants cool themselves by climbing onto small pieces of dried vegetation to take advantage of random light breezes. Cool fact. But does this help explain why it goes out at that time? Can’t they just cool themselves by climbing onto dried vegetation no matter what time of day it is? This doesn’t explain why it goes out in midday, and thus is the correct answer choice for this question, which wants the answer choice that least explains this scavenging time.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.