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Learning about the navigational feats of animals

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Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#21

Post by sdflhasjd »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #6
Roark66 wrote: post #2

I'm not quite convinced that "animals don't get lost". How many lost cats never return for every one that does? Did anyone ever make a real study? Also there are other questionable bits in the article for example "We now have geolocation devices light enough to be carried by monarch butterflies". Where are those devices described? For years I've been looking for a reliable GPS tracking for cats that don't require the…

I have a weird feeling when cats go missing they want a new home, or want to roam?

This is actually how we acquired our first cat. A cat just turned up at our door one day and basically moved in - we didn't feed her at first, but she slept and played with us (3 kids)

Eventually my parents managed to track down the actual owner, turns out the cat and her sister didn't get along too well in the same house, she only went there to eat.

The owner was more than happy for us to properly adobt her.

No clue why she chose us, but cats are territorial animals so it makes sense that they can just not like tho they're living with.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#22

Post by Salamat »

cosmodisk wrote: post #16

The problem for humans is that the need not to be lost has vanished with modern cities, public transport,and more recently, GPS. Most humans don't actively look for reference points when traveling. I remember going to pick mushrooms with my in-laws in a forest a few miles from their house. My mother in law was navigating it like Mowgli: she knew every single nook and cranny,the specific trees and exits into forest se…

Even in the desert where the landscape in always infux with sand dunes, people used to travel the desert and they still do in Africa and the middle east, they look up the into the sky for stars etc.Beduens still do it there, they unril recently-used to travel either walking or in camel convoys from Syria to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. But when I got lost in the desert - car broke down- at dusk I had to wait walk, in the wrong direction as it turned out, untill sunset.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#23

Post by hyko »

Fargren wrote: post #20
hyko wrote: post #9

Animals do get lost. On to the next article that takes a fallacy and makes it an axiom.

You are reading the title as "Why animals don't ever get lost". That's one way to read the title. It can also be interpreted as "Why animals don't often get lost", or in other words, "What mechanisms do animals use to avoid getting lost." Which is an interesting question.

Yes, you’re right - thanks for pointing this out.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#24

Post by ourmandave »

technothrasher wrote: post #4

I don't know how far the cat got, but I had a similar experience with moving into a new house. The previous owners had to leave without the cat because it mysteriously left about a week before they had to move and didn't show back up. Three weeks later, a very scrawny cat showed up at my door and wouldn't leave. I let it in and fed it and then got in contact with the previous owners. They drove two hours back to get…

We lost our cat and months later got a call from the shelter.

The neighbor down and around the corner had saved him from his dog and brought him in. They IDed him from the chip.

Later at the vet, they told us cats can get lost being only a few houses away.

I imagine it's a whole different perspective seeing things from one foot off the ground.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#25

Post by ozim »

tchvil wrote: post #12

My disabled aunt went regularly to Lourdes in France for some hopeful cure. Once, at the moment to leave to the train station, the cat was nowhere to be found. Heartbroken she left her there, and took the train. 9 months later a dirty and skinny white cat stood in front of her door in the very north of France. The cat crossed the whole country!

I expect that if cat would somehow knew the shortest way back home it would arrive in less than 6 months.

What I googled was that cat average walking speed would be 3.3km/h. If a cat would walk for 6 hours a day it should cover like 20km a day. From Lourdes to Belgium it is like 1000km, when one selects walking path on google. With that in mind it should be something like 50 days or 2 months by shortest path.

For me that cat was badly lost, well being a cat you don't have restaurants but as in the first paragraph if it would not be lost I would expect it to come back in less than 6 months.

In the end it found its way but that would be the same for me if I take the wrong exit at the highway and I am 1 hour later, I was lost for that hour.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#27

Post by detritus »

ourmandave wrote: post #24
technothrasher wrote: post #4

I don't know how far the cat got, but I had a similar experience with moving into a new house. The previous owners had to leave without the cat because it mysteriously left about a week before they had to move and didn't show back up. Three weeks later, a very scrawny cat showed up at my door and wouldn't leave. I let it in and fed it and then got in contact with the previous owners. They drove two hours back to get…

We lost our cat and months later got a call from the shelter. The neighbor down and around the corner had saved him from his dog and brought him in. They IDed him from the chip. Later at the vet, they told us cats can get lost being only a few houses away. I imagine it's a whole different perspective seeing things from one foot off the ground.

Yeah, I'm sure I read a year or two back that Cats have an odd sense of direction in which they don't 'join up' different paths - say, that from out of the front of a building, to that out of the back.

Rings true with a cat we have in our building here which simply cannot register that the back door has access for it, so waits out front no matter how inclement the weather.

Mind you, it IS a cat - so likely purposefully being an arsehole for some particular reason.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#28

Post by bsenftner »

Roark66 wrote: post #2

I'm not quite convinced that "animals don't get lost". How many lost cats never return for every one that does? Did anyone ever make a real study? Also there are other questionable bits in the article for example "We now have geolocation devices light enough to be carried by monarch butterflies". Where are those devices described? For years I've been looking for a reliable GPS tracking for cats that don't require the…

Well, I've worked on one such geolocation device about the size of a grain of rice, and that was 30 years ago. It was a tracking device started by a former Israeli military intelligence officer after his family was scattered in a terrorist attack and it was days before everyone could be accounted. This tracking device was the size of a pack of cigarettes' when in development, and by the time I left the company (late 1990) the company was being sold to the Israeli government and the device was the size of a grain of rice. It provided 3D location in an area via 3-way triangulation of telecommunication tower signals.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#29

Post by b112 »

Grazester wrote: post #18
Roark66 wrote: post #2

I'm not quite convinced that "animals don't get lost". How many lost cats never return for every one that does? Did anyone ever make a real study? Also there are other questionable bits in the article for example "We now have geolocation devices light enough to be carried by monarch butterflies". Where are those devices described? For years I've been looking for a reliable GPS tracking for cats that don't require the…

I have had probably more than a hundred cats throughout my childhood more than 13(kittens) at one given point. All my cats were outside/indoor cats free to go and come and I am convinced that the cats that would go out and not come back were either killed by dogs in the surrounding neighborhoods or simply didn't not want to come back. The cats that would not usually return were the older ones. If a younger cat did no…

Cats have personalities.

I'm sure you know this, but maybe have not considered it in this context.

There have been humans in my life I did not like, or who drove me bonkers. Perfectly good people, but just a personality conflict. Who's to say, that it isn't the same for some cats? Just a personality conflict, and so they seek life elsewhere.

And only a 100 years ago, most cats were farms cats, as most people lived in rural areas. Many cats were barn cats, familiar with humans, but mostly wild, living off of mice and other vermin.

Those genes don't vanish in 100 years. Maybe some of those older cats just preferred independence?

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#30

Post by maxerickson »

Roark66 wrote: post #2

I'm not quite convinced that "animals don't get lost". How many lost cats never return for every one that does? Did anyone ever make a real study? Also there are other questionable bits in the article for example "We now have geolocation devices light enough to be carried by monarch butterflies". Where are those devices described? For years I've been looking for a reliable GPS tracking for cats that don't require the…

Presumably it is https://monarch.engin.umich.edu/ which isn't really a geolocation device, it's a environmental logger that can (apparently) be used to infer a track.
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