Bottlenose dolphins can use learned vocal labels to address each other

Animals exhibit remarkable navigation abilities as if they have an internal compass. Head direction (HD) cells encoding the animal’s heading azimuth are found in the brain of several animal species; the HD cell signals are dependent on the vestibular nuclei, where magnetic responsive cells are present in birds. However, it is difficult to determine whether…

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…

A recent piece of work by a team lead by A. . Kölzsch from Germany tracked a family of Greater White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons)  This goose is a great migrator and winters (December to February) in Western Europe where the researchers were helped by colleagues in the Netherlands for this study.  The geese migrate in…

There has always been huge uncertainty as to how migrating animals learn where to go.  The cuckoo is a perfect example, as the newly hatched birds must travel from Europe to The Congo Basin for the winter, but how do they know the way (as their parents departed sometime before and they travel on their…

We recently posted an article by Antonio Nafarrate which refers to Jill Moss’s snails and their ability to home.  Since then there has been much in the UK papers about snails having a strong sense of place and returning to it (there was an article in the Daily Telegraph, “why slugs and snails thrown over…