Animal navigation
Animal navigation
Animals have evolved a capacity to navigate in their home ranges and during long-distance, global migrations involving different strategies and several compasses many times. The biological compasses that have been described are based on information from the sun and the related pattern of skylight polarization, the stars, and the geomagnetic field. To navigate home across unknown terrain an animal needs to use a map and a compass, telling its position relative to the goal and what direction to take to reach home. In the case of global long-distance navigation, a bi-coordinate map based on geomagnetic information has been proposed. Navigation around a nest site may involve memory of landmarks or odours. Young songbirds migrating for the first time are expected to rely on an endogenous migration programme (clock-and-compass mechanism) encoding distance and direction to migrate. During later migrations more information may be incorporated in their system of long-distance navigation.
Keywords: compass orientation, path integration, maps, Earth’s magnetic field, vector navigation, homing, landmarks
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