Shearwaters make efficient navigational decisions, even at very fine scales
Editor’s note You may like this paper Puffins are hero navigators for Animal Nav.
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Quantum effects in evolution: terrestrial fine-tuning of magnetic parameters
Editor’s remark Here is an interesting paper suggesting that animals can detect the magnetic field and use it. I am still very sceptical and think that these ideas are Classic Age of Enlightenment attempts to find quantifiable truth where in fact there may be none. Have a read and let me know your thoughts…
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Animal Navigation a new theory for 2025
How animals navigate has been a mystery forever. At present, the prevailing theory is that animal navigation is based on magnetic information. But there are huge problems with this approach. In order to use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate by, you need to know where you are and where you are going, as well…
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Bogong Moths
This paper is about the extraordinary Bogong moths of Australia who navigate to caves in the mountains during the summer to avoid high temperatures Read the article
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Magnetoreception and the ruling hypothesis
This paper is fascinating. This site has always been sceptical about Magnetoreception – the magnetic navigation story for the same reasons that are discussed here. No-one has found the magnetic receptors. the cryptochrome story requires conditions in the eye that are not conducive to quantum effects and knowing where North is does not help without…
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Path integration
Adelaide Sibeaux 1 , Cait Newport1, Jonathan P. Green1, Cecilia Karlsson 2, Jacob Engelmann 3 & Theresa Burt de Perera1 have recently published a paper showing that fishes as well as other animals use path integration to find their way home. I believe this is very important and probably the main way we navigate. Path integration maybe the way…
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A conceptual framework on the role of magnetic cues in songbird migration ecology
This paper is difficult to understand but it summarises the work on animal navigation to date. The key is that all the research which is confident that animals navigate using magnetic cues are not necessarily the whole story and that all navigators use all the clues they can get to help them. Recently there was…