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Hippocampus by Simon Raggett

I was at a lecture on animal navigation at the Royal Society this week. Nothing world changing, but possibly some useful bits of background regarding navigation. This deals with the mammal brain, but given the similarities in behaviour between mammals and birds one can assume the birds might achieve some similar process. The important brain…

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…

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.,…

Homing Snails

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…

To cross or not to cross

Recently Vera Brust, Bianca Michalik and Ommo Hüppop  have produced a paper called “To cross or not to cross – thrushes at the German North Sea coast adapt flight and routing to wind conditions in autumn”. They looked at some of the thrush family (blackbirds, redwings and song thrushes) that migrate across the North sea from the German…