2
January 2003
Animal behaviour: Animal magnetism
Animals use various cues to find their way home, but only vertebrates (birds and a few other animals) are known to have 'true' navigation — the ability to get home from an unfamiliar location with no cues (odours, say) emanating from home and no information collected on the outward journey. Ants and bees use these latter tricks. Now an invertebrate is shown to be capable of true navigation. The migratory spiny lobster, already known to have a good sense of direction, uses a 'magnetic map' to orient itself in a new location so that it points towards home. This suggests that similar mechanisms might be used by other migratory animals, including fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds.
True navigation and magnetic maps in spiny lobsters
LARRY C. BOLES & KENNETH J. LOHMANN
Nature
421, 60–63 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01226
| First
Paragraph | Full
Text (HTML / PDF) |
Animal behaviour: The lobster navigators
THOMAS ALERSTAM
When experimentally displaced in geomagnetic
space, spiny lobsters act as if to make their way home. This is a fascinating
case of navigation by an invertebrate using a magnetic map sense.
Nature
421, 27–28 (2003); doi:10.1038/421027a
| Full
Text (HTML / PDF) |
