Ch 54. Orientation and Navigation in the Animal World

Gillian Durieux and Miriam Liedvogel

Chapter Overview:

To accomplish directed movement, animals have to orient or navigate using the information presented to them in their environments. The strategies by which animals migrate vary substantially. Some animals migrate together in huge numbers. These events can be spectacular, like the seasonal migration of hundreds of thousands of wildebeest in the Serengeti as they follow grazing areas or the migration of huge numbers of North America’s monarch butterflies that sees several generations complete a migratory cycle. Other animals like some species of geese and crane may migrate in groups with family members, while other

species, like many night-migrating songbirds, migrate entirely alone.

For researchers, orientation and navigation represent two different tasks. Orientation is the ability to choose and follow a specific heading or direction, and is commonly associated with the sole use of a compass system to keep that vector. Navigation, on the other hand, is a bit more complex. This requires an animal to work out the relationship between its current location and its goal, and then choose the correct course of movement based on compass information to get there. When discussing navigation, researchers often use a map analogy to reflect how we use a map as a reference to determine where we are in relation to where we want to be An animal that is displaced to a new location where it has never been before would have to navigate to return to a known area; that is, it has to use learned information from their environment that will tell it where it currently is and then pick the direction that will take it back.

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Download hi-res images, for use with attribution. (c) Gillian Durieux.

Figure 54.1 Examples illustrating the fascinating diversity and impressive scale of migratory journeys across various taxa. In red: Every autumn, millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) migrate thousands of kilometers from southern Canada and the eastern United States to central Mexico, where they overwinter (Dingle et al. [8]). In spring, the monarchs will make their way north over successive generations to begin the whole cycle again (Dingle et al.)

In blue: Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) which breed in Central America migrate 8 000 km or more to feed in waters off Antarctica (Rasmussen et al.)

In orange: Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) that hatch on the South Eastern coast of the United States migrate 12 000 km or more along the North Atlantic gyre to seas around the Azores and back (Musick and Limpus; Bolten et al.)

In green: Willow warblers (Phylloscopus trochilus) from Denmark were tracked on their entire migration to their overwintering grounds in sub‐Saharan Africa – a remarkable feat for a bird that weighs less than 15 g (Lerche‐Jørgensen et al. )

In purple: The migratory journey of bar‐tailed godwits (Limosa lapponica) can take some individuals from New Zealand to the Yellow Sea, to Alaska and then back, clocking up around 29 000 km. From GPS tracks, we know that they can fly nonstop for a week or more during some legs of this trip (Battley et al.)

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