Long Distance Navigators: How Do Insects, Birds, and Fish Do It?
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
David Stone, an emeritus professor of geophysics at UAF and longtime resident of Ester, has devoted years of work towards understanding how animals navigate over long distances. His presentation will delve into the mysteries of how birds, fish and even insects are able to find their way to breeding and overwintering areas across thousands of miles. If you’ve ever wondered how salmon find their way back to spawn, or how the arctic tern is able to travel back and forth between Alaska and Antarctica without getting lost, you won’t want to miss this.
Above: Interpolated geolocation tracks of 11 Arctic terns tracked from breeding colonies in Greenland (10 birds) and Iceland (1 bird). Green = autumn (postbreeding) migration (August–November), red = winter range (December–March), and yellow = spring (return) migration (April–May). Dotted lines link locations during the equinoxes. Map from the Arctic Tern Migration Projectof the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources.
See also information on:
The E-7 godwit
monarch butterflies using a sort of internal solar sextant with magnetic field detector backup
multi-generational dragonfly migration