Animals have mysterious ways of finding their way back home
An inch-long bogong moth covers hundreds of miles of Australian terrain to return to its birthplace. (Ajay Narendra/)For some species, neighborhood pride is more about survival than sentiment. Many creatures travel hundreds of miles to find resources before returning home to mate. How do they know where to go? Signature smells and magnetism help migrators, but some parts of the process are a mystery.Aquatic animals generally just follow currents to open waters, but aromatic awareness comes in handy when it’s time to reverse course to reproduce. Lake sturgeon, for one, hatch in the pebbled depths of Wisconsin’s Kewaunee River and wend up to 100 miles to the Great Lakes, where they mature for a decade or two before the big paddle back. Less than 4 percent settle somewhere new. “They imprint on the river they’re born in,” explains Jessica Collier, a biologist at the US Fish and Wildlife Service in...