4 ms·

Elephant seals have a map sense

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• kuhewa 5y ago
  It's a nice, kinda elegant study. I'm not convinced by the results that a 'map' sense need be involved, could be a 'how far did I go' sense that provides a good enough proxy. I'd need to see movement path analysis to be convinced. The one individual's in the supplementary figure suggests migration to the foraging grounds was higher speed and linear, which would allow for a decent mental model of total displacement. The return trip appears to be more meandering/tortuous, as if foraging is occurring after the turnaround point, which would provide some buffer to increase either linearity or speed if/when necessary to 'stay on schedule'.
• locallost 5y ago
  European eels apparently migrate to the Atlantic ocean when it's time to reproduce. All of them do it in the same way and they do it once in their lives. If necessary to accomplish it they have to even go over dry land to switch to a different river.
• fredBG 5y ago
  it's a "sense of orientation" not a "map sense" and most animals exhibit the possession of this faculty. humans on the other hand...