Many animals find their way across continents or even around the world every year. The homing pigeon will fly up to 700 miles (1,127 km) in a single day to return to its roost. How does it figure out how to get there? How does the loggerhead turtle navigate 7,500 miles (12,070 km) across the Pacific Ocean? We humans sometimes need GPS just to get to dance class! The answer is migrating animals have a variety of super skills. Sometimes they use the same basic senses we do to get around, other times they sense things our bodies can't detect.
Written in the Stars
In a long-distance animal migration, there are no sign posts or roads to follow, but there's always the Sun. The monarch butterfly uses the Sun to navigate from the northern United States to central Mexico. The Sun changes position in the sky throughout the day, so the monarch adjusts its calculation of what's south for different times of day. "It is really an incredible feat that these little butterflies are able to make that amazing long-distance migration," University of Chicago ecologist Marcus Kronforst has said.
If you travel at night, you can't rely on the Sun. Harbor seals navigate by the stars when they search for food at night. In one experiment, the animals were able to follow a specific star in a planetarium "sky." When nocturnal dung beetles want to roll their pile of poop away to a safe spot, their compound eyes can't make out individual stars. But they can use the light of the Moon to find their way.
Animal Magnetism
Bu hikaye Muse Science Magazine for Kids dergisinin March 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Muse Science Magazine for Kids dergisinin March 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
