A TYPE of “black-box” for pigeons suggests that the birds navigate using prominent landmarks.
Alexei Vyssotski and his team at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich, Switzerland, fitted homing pigeons with an EEG device and a GPS sensor. They then recorded the pigeons’ brain activity as they flew over familiar terrain.
They identified several bands of increased brain activity when the birds passed significant landmarks, such as coastlines, highways and farmhouses, suggesting these are important to navigation (Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.070).
The team say the next step will be to measure brain activity over unfamiliar territory.
