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Search - Animal Navigation

Animal Navigation
Author: Talbot H. Waterman

How does an arctic tern find its way from the antarctic ice pack to its breeding grounds on the coast of Greenland, halfway around the world? How can a monarch butterfly accurately navigate a flight thousands of kilometers long when it has never before migrated? How does the salmon know when to begin its lengthy upstream swim in time to spawn su... more »ccessfully?

In this fascinating, informative book, biologist Talbot Waterman explains the techniques by which animals as different as the caribou and the Chinese wool-handed crab make their way from one habitat to another -- with none of the instruments or records considered essential to human navigation.

After a look at the feats of some "world-class" animal commuters, 'Animal Navigation' shows that all successful navigators must be able to sense direction, distance, and time. We will see that an animal's compass, map, and clock are embedded in a variety of physiological and behavioral mechanisms. Like human explorers, some animals pilot by sight: there are birds and bees that navigate by celestial clues and whales that follow the contours of coastlines. Most animals, however, employ senses far different from ours, including the bloodhound's nose and the porpoise's "radar", or echolocation.

Dr. Waterman explains how visual signals and gravity sensing systems orient animals and keep them on a steady course. He then documents the various compasslike elements of animal physiology, including the chemoreception that plays a part in salmon homing and moth mating, the sensitivity of some birds to low-frequency infrasounds such as those caused by wind and surf, and the many examples in the animal kingdom of electric and magnetic direction-finding.

The author explores the "map sense" of animals, the ability, best known in homing pigeons, to tell where they are. He also looks at the role of biological clocks and calendars by which creatures great and small determine the timing of their departures and arrivals, even the speed of their migrations. The final chapter is devoted to the important story of why animals migrate.

This amazing account of wildlife movement through air, water, and land is paralleled, in Dr. Waterman's narrative, by an adventure in human seeking: how scientists have come, by observation and experiment, to learn so much about the age-old mysteries of animal pathfinding.

Clearly written and lavishly illustrated, 'Animal Navigation' offers insight and understanding into one of the most common, yet truly wondrous, sights in nature-an animal on the move.

ISBN-13: 9780716750246
ISBN-10: 0716750244
Publication Date: 12/1988
Pages: 243
Edition: First Edition
Rating:

Currently 4.5/5 Stars.

4.5 stars, based on 1 rating

Publisher: Scientific American Library
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Science & Math >> Biological Sciences >> Animals >> General
Science & Math >> Biological Sciences >> Zoology >> General
Science & Math >> General
Engineering & Transportation >> Professional Science >> Biological Sciences >> Zoology >> General

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