Animal migration is a fascinating phenomenon where animals travel long distances to reach breeding or feeding grounds. Discover the intricacies of this behaviour, including the cues animals use to navigate, the challenges they face along the way, and the benefits and costs of migration. Explore our resources and insights on animal migration and expand your understanding of this fascinating natural wonder.
Background From time to time, I scan the literature to find out the latest ideas on animal behaviour but navigation in particular. Despite numerous papers involving the tracking of birds, hamsters, fish etc., I struggle to find the word that readers of this Journal use all the time – Dowsing. Since the first recording of…
A summary 2011 The two prevailing ideas on long distance navigation are based around two ideas: Magnetic cues Olfactory cues (smell) It is clear that near home animals, birds and humans build up a map of their neighbourhood with remembered sights smells and landmarks. This is all mediated by the hippocampus. There is some evidence…
It is interesting, that the need to know how to get somewhere is often the trigger that enables navigation to begin. I discussed this with a friend of mine, whose wife always says, “Why do you use a SatNav when your own direction finding is better every time?” We discussed how his sense of direction…
Whilst dolphins may not teach us much more about animal navigation than other animals, humanity has been fascinated by the dolphin from the earliest times. They are a part of Greek mythology and we have continuous stories of sailors being rescued by dolphins as well as the legend of mermaids. A book called Le Cinquieme…
I am fascinated in Animal Migration. I have attended very learned arguments about this: they have found that birds have magnets in their beaks for instance. But as you investigate these arguments they just do not work right. For successful migration you need to know when to go and where to go. Terns for instance…
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