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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….

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…

Bottlenose dolphins can use learned vocal labels to address each other

See this link http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/07/17/1304459110.abstract Editor’s Comment: This piece is in line with all our thoughts that Dolphin whistles and calls are in fact the individual’s name or call sign. These ‘vocalisations’ are not language, but more like “come in No.9 I want to communicate with you”. We still believe that Dolphins actually communicate telepathically. If…

Does the geomagnetic field intensity affect the flight path of homing pigeons?

Analysis of GPS recorded tracks of intact trigeminal sectioned pigeons. Conditioning studies have shown that the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve is functionally involved in the perception of the geomagnetic field intensity. However, homing experiments conducted in the field with homing pigeons demonstrated that trigeminal mediation of magnetoreception is neither necessary nor sufficient for…