| |
ByRichard Nissen Reading Time: 1 minute
Intro
This site takes you into the world where technology is trying to understand animal migration by using tags and a sophisticated satellite system to follow routes taken by animals.  Up until now tags have often been very heavy, or at least too heavy for a lot of tiny birds that make huge migrations such as the cuckoo. Other tracking has used daylight length so that during the equinox when birds ofter migrate they are inefficient.  Papers have been written on very incomplete evidence such as 4 individuals.  The Icarus project will deliver enormous amounts of data which should enable us to understand these animal movements better.
Richard Nissen
editor


http://icarusinitiative.org/

Similar Posts

  • Investigating factors influencing initial orientation in nocturnally fledging seabirds

    Please note that Tom Guildford is a very important Animal Navigation professor working at Oxford University.  Manx Shearwaters have been extensively studied as they have amazing navigational skills but do not seems to rely on magnetism. Richard NissenEditor This is a summary of a paper protected by copyright: Syposz, M., Padget, O., Wynn, J., Gillies, N.,…

  • Elephant Seals

    Elephant seals (sea elephants) are large, oceangoing seals in the genus Mirounga. There are two species: the northern elephant seal (M. angustirostris) and the southern elephant seal (M. leonina). Both were hunted to the brink of extinction by the end of the 19th century, but numbers have since recovered. The northern elephant seal, somewhat smaller than its southern relative, ranges over the Pacific coast of the U.S., Canada and Mexico….

  • Dolphins and Bats: Superpower

    Dolphins and bats don’t have much in common, but they share a superpower: Both hunt their prey by emitting high-pitched sounds and listening for the echoes. Now, a study shows that this ability arose independently in each group of mammals from the same genetic mutations. For more reading follow this link: ow.ly/xkfk30nysHa

  • The Albatross

    You will find other descriptions here of Henri Weimerskirch’s work on Albatrosses under Albatrosses on this site as well as Anna Gagliardo’s work on the use of smell in navigation. A book recently written by Adam Nicholson called “The Seabirds Cry” is fascinating about the mythology and lives of the sea birds in his book;…

  • Humans and Horses

    It is clear that animals which humans domesticated were all chosen because they were amenable to domestication.  This happened at several sites all over the world and the animals were mostly the same. Dogs and horses seem to have always been the top of the list. The cow is an unlikely animal to have chosen…

  • Summary of ideas Spring 2014

    Intro I have put together this article to spell out some of the thinking that I have come across recently.  A lot is highly contentious (such as Torsion waves) but as we struggle to understand how animals (and humans) navigate effortlessly, ideas which seemed so strong suddenly seem to be beset by impossible conditions.  We…