Animal Navigation Group

The Animal Navigation Group (ANG) provides a focal point for members interested in animal migration, orientation and navigation within the RIN. Currently there are 249 members. The Group acts as a forum to disseminate news on animal navigation, orientation and migration through its newsletter and conferences which run on a three year cycle. The next of these conferences will be RIN 11.

The Chairman, Dr Peter Fraser, a PhD from Aberdeen University, is interested in marine animals. He was the first person to identify a sense organ linked to balance in these which responds to hydrostatic pressure allowing depth perception. Present work ranges from plotting depth and temperature ranges of sharks and working out how the pressure sensor could work at the nanometer level scale. The Secretary, Dr Theresa Burt de Perera , a PhD from Oxford University, is interested in spatial cognition in animals, particularly fish. Currently, Theresa is using the blind Mexican cave fish as a model to explore the way in which a three-dimensional map of space can be built.

Newsletters, published twice each year, are drafted by Air Cdre 'Pinky' Grocott and edited by Dr T Burt de Perera, Oxford University, Hon. Sec. Animal Navigation Group. The past year has seen an increase both in the number of animal navigation research papers and in the number of longer than normal abstracts. Good news for everyone interested in how animals navigate, but a headache for Dr T Burt de Perera who had the task of selecting which of the entries to retain in the draft Newsletter of 43 pages. Reduced to 33 pages, the Spring 2009 Newsletter contains excellent material on how animals navigate. For the first time, there is an item on the satellite tracking of the largest bony fish, the ocean sunfish, and another on coral reef fish using olfaction to find island homes. On land and in the skies items include honey bees averaging directions in the waggle dance to determine flight direction, tracking butterfly movements using harmonic radar, chemical magnetoreception in birds, magnetic and other non-visual orientation in some cave and surface amphibians and salamanders, use of trace elements analysis of feathers to track dispersal of birds and involvement of the sun and the magnetic compass of domestic fowl in its spatial orientation. Members may access this Newsletter and previous Newsletters through the 'Resources' button at the top of this page. RIN members who wish to join the ANG should contact the RIN Administrator

In addition to the newsletter and the online discussion board, the ANG runs an e-mail animal navigation forum to provide an international link between research scientists and other interested people over the whole range of research disciplines that relate to animal navigation, including orientation, migration, neurobiology, animal behaviour, sensory physiology and ecology. It was formed in 2000 and has 401 members, mostly Professors and PhD experimental biologists, drawn from 35 countries around the world. To join the new e-mail animal-forum either follow the 'Rules'  or send an e-mail to pinkygrocott@btopenworld.com

The BBC is running a series entitled "World on the move". It is an attempt to track great animal migrations and invites particpation by the public. Details are at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/worldonthemove/programmes/ 

Link to HighWire Press Stanford University Free Online Full-text Articles http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl/

Link to Animal Migration Group Lund University

http://orn-lab.ekol.lu.se/birdmigration/index.php?cat=srch&lng=en

Link to Professor Menzel's website 'Neurobiology and the Behavior of the Honeybee

http://www.neurobiologie.fu-berlin.de/menzel/publications.html

Link to Professor Kamil's 'Center for avian cognition' website http://bsweb.unl.edu/avcog/personnel/kamil.htm

Link to Monarch Butterfly website 'Monarch Watch' http://www.MonarchWatch.org

Link to Advanced Concepts Team - Biomimetics - European Space Agency

http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/bio/index.htm

Link to Government of Quebec - Satellite Telemetry Maps of Caribou Migrations

http://www.mrnf.gouv.qc.ca:80/english/wildlife/maps-caribou/maps.jsp