Analysis of GPS tracking data for more than 700 foraging trips by Manx shearwaters ( Puffinus puffinus ) suggests that the brains of the seabirds accurately encode the direction and distance of their home colonies, but not specific routes, given that the birds timed their return journeys and tended to follow the most geographically direct route home, but did not anticipate the presence of intervening islands or peninsulas over which they do not fly.
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Article #19-03829: "Shearwaters know the direction and distance home but fail to encode intervening obstacles after free-ranging foraging trips," by Oliver Padget et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Oliver Padget, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM; e-mail: oliver.padget@zoo.ox.ac.uk ; Tim Guilford, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM; e-mail: tim.guilford@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences