How pigeons may smell their way home
Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - 11:30
in Astronomy & Space
Homing pigeons, like other birds, are extraordinary navigators, but how they manage to find their way back to their lofts is still debated. To navigate, birds require a 'map' (to tell them home is south, for example) and a 'compass' (to tell them where south is), with the sun and the Earth's magnetic field being the preferred compass systems. A new paper provides evidence that the information pigeons use as a map is in fact available in the atmosphere: odours and winds allow them to find their way home. The results are now published in Biogeosciences, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).