Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Learning about the navigational feats of animals

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 93 posts

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#31

Post by b112 »

ozim wrote: post #25
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…

To be fair, taking time to stalk and kill prey, slow travel time.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#32

Post by KMag »

detritus wrote: post #27
ourmandave wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 purposeful…

To be fair, I know lots of people who will walk 2 sides of a triangle because they know how to get from A to B and A to C, but just don't have a sense that B and C are rather close. I think they feel there's probably a shortcut between B and C, but they just don't have the sense of direction to just walk in the general direction from B toward C until things start looking familiar.

I also can't count the number of times I've argued with someone about the direction to walk because their phone's compass is off in a dense urban environment. They insist on walking the direction they think Google Maps is telling them to walk, only to have the whole map spin after walking half a block when the compass gets its bearings. I've seen the same person dumbfounded several times by this.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#33

Post by ssr2020 »

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…

Every year thousans of birds, animals migrate thousand of kilometers and they do not lose their way. This is a proof they knows how to find their ways. It is understood that navigation has been taught and equipped for them.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#34

Post by dsego »

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…

Male cats are usually the ones to go out and then come back in a few days, next time few weeks, then months... and then they disappear for good. I've never had a female cat go away like that.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#35

Post by Spooky23 »

KMag wrote: post #32
detritus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 purposeful…

To be fair, I know lots of people who will walk 2 sides of a triangle because they know how to get from A to B and A to C, but just don't have a sense that B and C are rather close. I think they feel there's probably a shortcut between B and C, but they just don't have the sense of direction to just walk in the general direction from B toward C until things start looking familiar. I also can't count the number of tim…

I’ve done that in myself in Manhattan. I always travel there by train and would take a circuitous route by train, only to realize when driving last year that I was like a 10 minute walk away!

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#36

Post by uh_uh »

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!

How is this possible? What was the signal that told the cat it was going in the right or wrong direction?

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#37

Post by dsego »

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…

Ha, my parents are like that, they love to pick mushrooms and they know their terrain and have pretty good orientation. I got lost a few times going with them and not keeping up or wandering off in the wrong direction. Luckily, I could hear their shouts.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#38

Post by csomar »

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…

> he husband told me quietly he'd hoped he'd never see the cat again.

Do you suspect he's involved in the disappearance of the cat?

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#39

Post by enriquto »

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.

Their interpretation of the title seems the normal one, yours is very convoluted, like aspiring to some sort of plausible deniability.

If the title was "Why people from country X are thiefs.", that would be very insulting to people from X. If the article turned out to be about why some people from X become thiefs, the title would be very misleading.

Post reply on HN