Magnetic position determination by homing pigeons?
How pigeons return home from unfamiliar release sites is a long-standing puzzle in animal behaviour. Walker (1998, 1999) has described a "vector summation model" which "identifies a novel coordinate that pigeons could use with magnetic total intensity to determine position". The model is not applicable in a magnetic field generated simply by a geocentric dipole, but requires a field perturbed by higher-order sources. Tests are devised to simulate the addition of both regional and local magnetic anomalies to a geocentric dipole field, and to calculate the directions of the home loft from a number of release sites. The results indicate that a pigeon would be unlikely to derive useful information from the model.
Ian Reilly
W
W
School of Surveying, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. ireilly@suthern.co.nz
D000818:Animals; D010856:Columbidae / Q000502:physiology*; D005426:Flight, Animal; D006702:Homing Behavior; D008280:Magnetics; D008954:Models, Biological; D009949:Orientation; D013028:Space Perception