Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Migration & Homing

At the moment in our Biology class we are doing externals. The topic we are focusing right now is migration and homing.

Migration  is a journey with a return trip that is often once a year or one in a life often for reproduction or feeding.

Homing is a short trip home after searching for food or mates.

Animals can navigate when migrating and homing. They use 4 ways of navigating Visual Cues, Star compass , magnetic and sun compass. The Visual cues that animals have that helps them navigate are the landmarks , mountains , buildings, roads and forests. Animals such as birds can use motowats etc while migrating. Also bees used Digger wasp used comes as visual are where ' home'.  The change of land (development, deforestation) many harm navigater and migration. Turning out lights @ night. They use star compass to navigate. They used starts for navigation. Scientists put birds in a conservation/start dome changed the shy and looked at which way there were hopping (wanting to migrate) it changed as they moved the stars. Another navigation technique they use is magnetic. Some animals for example pigeons and salmon have been shown to sense and navigate using the earth's magnetic field. Experiments with magnets on pigeons beaks showed their navigation became confused. Lastly they also use the sun compass as an technique.  When the sun rises in the eats ad sets the west. Bees and the waggle dance. The number of waggles = distance, angle of middle = angle to the side of the sun.