Orientation and navigation in Amphibia

Abstract

Aquatic and terrestrial amphibians integrate acoustic, magnetic, mechanical, olfactory and visual directional information into a redundant–multisensory orientation system. The sensory information is processed to accomplish homing following active or passive displacement by either path integration, beaconing, pilotage, compass orientation or true navigation. There is evidence for two independent compass systems, a time-compensated compass based on celestial cues and a light-dependent magnetic inclination compass. Beaconing along acoustic or olfactory gradients emanating from the home site, as well as pilotage along fixed visual landmarks also form an important part in the behaviour of many species. True navigation has been shown in only one species, the aquatic salamander Notophthalmus viridescens. Evidence on the nature of the navigational map obtained so far is compatible with the magnetic map hypothesis.

Keywords:

• Amphibia
• multisensory
• orientation
• path integration
• beaconing
• pilotage
• compass orientation
• map-based orientation