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Learning about the navigational feats of animals

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Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#41

Post by tchvil »

b112 wrote: post #31
ozim wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or take into account my fledging memory. This is an old story, and 6 months or 9 months didn't make a big difference until now and this math. Will ask my aunt.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#42

Post by burlesona »

The idea that humans are the worst navigators ever is rather silly. Humans who actually explore the world without being spaced out by their smartphone can roam and find their way back perfectly well.

But navigation is like a muscle, and most of us have allowed it to atrophy because it’s easy to just mindlessly follow what your GPS of choice tells you to do.

I don’t think the “humans can’t navigate” premise of this article would have passed as plausible a mere thirty years ago.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#43

Post by nnvvhh »

insickness wrote: post #15

When I lived in an apartment in New York City, I had an indoor cat. One day I was talking to my neighbor with the door open and the cat peeked her head out, sniffing around. She was a stereotypical fraidy cat, always scared of everything, so when she walked out the door, I knew she wouldn't go far, especially when she walked up the stairs outside my apartment. I few minutes later I hear her meowing like crazy. I went…

This happens to my cat in Brooklyn. We walk with him up or down a flight of stairs to an identical-looking floor, and if any disturbance occurs on the other floor he runs to "our" door. We get a real kick out of his mistake.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#44

Post by hyko »

enriquto wrote: post #39
Fargren wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, you’re also right - that’s a good way to explain it.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#46

Post by xyzzyz »

Salamat wrote: post #22
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…

William Thesiger in his book recounts that the Bedouins he traveled with could also identify and navigate based on the shape of the dunes too, and they had memory and recognition of various dune landscapes from many, many places.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#47

Post by grey413 »

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 hate it when map apps spin. Just absolutely hampers any ability to develop a bigger picture idea of how you're navigating, and is terribly confusing when the app gets your heading wrong, as your friend found out.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#48

Post by ozim »

b112 wrote: post #31
ozim wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I read your comment I thought that yes I probably underestimate how much it takes to hunt for food if you are a house cat, hungry for couple of days. Because one does not get 100% hit when hunting.

So it would be more like I knew where to go but I had to take that highway exit because I badly had to use the toilet. Maybe those 9 months would be quite right.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#49

Post by clairity »

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.

i found a kitten crying under a car in front of my building 2 1/2 months ago. after i bathed him and fed him (he gulped down 3 helpings of food!), he set up camp like he owned the place, to the dismay of my dog and cat. i learned later he’d been outside for about 4 days.

i found the owner, who lived a couple blocks away, via his chip as well. she was in recovery from an accident and was reluctant to take him back, so i fostered him for 2 months. a couple days after i finally returned him to her, she tried to give him back to me (which i had initially suggested to do if she didn’t want him) due to misbehavior and prodded by an apathetic boyfriend. but after reassuring her and talking through training ideas, she kept him and so far has been happy with that decision. he’s a very energetic but also very loving little guy.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#50

Post by KMag »

grey413 wrote: post #47
KMag wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hate it when map apps spin. Just absolutely hampers any ability to develop a bigger picture idea of how you're navigating, and is terribly confusing when the app gets your heading wrong, as your friend found out.

I don't like self-orienting phone maps, but people who never learned to properly read a map are likely to have trouble with maps that don't self-orient. They're better off with self-orienting maps, even if the self-orienting map sometimes are incorrectly oriented.
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