Homing is the inherent ability of an

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

navigate Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

towards an original

location In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...

through unfamiliar areas. This location may be either a home territory, or a breeding spot.

Uses

Homing abilities can be used to find the way back to home in a

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

. It is often used in reference to going back to a breeding spot seen years before, as in the case of

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Oncorhy ...

. Homing abilities can also be used to go back to familiar territory when displaced over long distances, such as with the red-bellied newt.

True navigation

Some animals use true

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

for their homing. This means in familiar areas they will use landmarks such as roads, rivers or mountains when flying, or islands and other landmarks while swimming. However, this only works in familiar territory. Homing pigeons, for example, will often navigate using familiar landmarks, such as roads.BBC News: Pigeons reveal map-reading secret
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Sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhe ...

s will also use landmarks to orient themselves.Avens, L., (2003) "Homing Behavior, Navigation, and Orientation of Juvenile Sea Turtles

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Magnetic orientation

Many animals use magnetic orientation based on the

Earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. The magnetic ...

to find their way home. This is usually used together with other methods, such as a sun compass, as in bird migration and in the case of turtles. This is also commonly used when no other methods are available, as in the case of lobsters, which live underwater, and

mole rat Mole-rat or mole rat can refer to several groups of burrowing Old World rodents: * Bathyergidae, a family of about 20 hystricognath species in six genera from Africa also called blesmols. *'' Heterocephalus glaber'', the naked mole-rat. * Spalaci ...

s, which home through their burrows.

Celestial orientation

Celestial orientation, navigation using the stars, is commonly used for homing. Displaced

marbled newt The marbled newt (''Triturus marmoratus'') is a mainly terrestrial newt native to western Europe. They are found in the Iberian Peninsula and France, where they typically inhabit mountainous areas. Habitat and distribution The marbled newt is ty ...

s, for example, can only home when stars are visible.

Olfaction

There is evidence that olfaction, or smell, is used in homing with several salamanders, such as the red-bellied newt. Olfaction is also necessary for the homing of

Topographic memory

Topographic memory, memory of the contours surrounding the destination, is one common method for navigation. This is mainly used by animals with less intelligence, such as molluscs. Limpets use this to find their way back to the home scrape; although whether this is true homing has been disputed.Villee, C., and Groody, T., (1940) ''American Midland Naturalist''; 24(1):190–204

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Homing (Biology) Behavior Animal migration