One of the many mysteries of animals is how they navigate. We hear about lost dogs and cats making their way back home over hundreds of miles, but how do they do it?
Numerous senses are likely involved. For example, dogs rely mostly on their keen sense of smell. They tend to follow overlapping areas of familiar scents. First, they might retrace their own scent trail before picking up the smells of another familiar dog. That may lead to the scent of a marked tree, then on to the smell of a familiar person and so on.
On the other hand, cats — like many other animals — may instinctively use the earth’s magnetic fields to guide them along great distances.
One thing’s for sure — we need to do a lot more work to unlock the black boxes holding the answers.