Animal navigation

Animal navigation is the set of processes animals use to determine direction, estimate location, and reach destinations. It combines sensory cues, internal representations, and movement strategies.

Path integration: A navigation process that estimates position by accumulating the direction and distance of successive movements. It lets animals return toward a starting point without retracing a visible route.
Hippocampus: A brain structure involved in memory, spatial representation, and navigation in many vertebrates. Hippocampal circuits support spatial memories used to locate destinations.
Animal migration: The regular, often seasonal movement of animals between distinct regions. Migration is a prominent outcome of navigation across large distances.
Taxis: Directed movement toward or away from a stimulus, such as light or a chemical gradient. Unlike multi-cue navigation, taxis can guide movement directly along a single stimulus gradient.
Magnetoreception: The ability to detect and use information from a magnetic field. Earth’s magnetic field can provide animals with directional or positional cues.
Place cell: A neuron that fires strongly when an animal occupies a particular location in an environment. Place cells provide a neural code for locations in familiar spaces.
Homing pigeon: A domestic pigeon bred and trained for its ability to return to a home loft from unfamiliar locations. Pigeon homing has been a major experimental system for studying navigation.
Kinesis: A change in movement rate or turning frequency in response to stimulus intensity, without directional steering. Kinesis changes the pattern of movement but does not itself determine a destination.
Celestial navigation: Orientation or navigation using the Sun, stars, or other celestial cues. Sky patterns provide direction when landmarks are absent or unfamiliar.
Grid cell: A neuron that fires at multiple locations forming a regular grid across an environment. Grid-cell activity can support metric estimates of distance and position.

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