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Cetacean Navigation

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Synonyms

Directed movement; Orientation; Travel

Definition

The process that mysticetes and odontocetes employ to move from one place to another, often by determining one’s position over time and space.

Introduction

Animals that dive to great depths or migrate long distances in the open ocean must employ a wide variety of methods to navigate their environment. Navigation techniques sometimes differ by species, and likely include a combination of sensory systems depending on the situation and perception cues available. There is still much to uncover about the mechanism of each sensory modality used for navigation by cetaceans. Because of the difficulty of experimenting on large cetaceans, many inferences about the mechanisms of cetacean navigation have been made from studies conducted on sea turtles, birds, and small odontocetes. Experiments on captive odontocetes have informed discoveries on sensory modalities used with echolocation and magnetoreception. Bio-logging techniques on wild...

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Correspondence to Maria Zapetis .

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Zapetis, M., Szesciorka, A. (2022). Cetacean Navigation. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_986

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