Navigational strategies and models

Many scientists are interested in the different mechanisms and strategies that animals use to navigate. This paper reviews a series of studies and models about the navigational strategies that animals can use to move from one place to another. Studies of long-distance navigation have mainly been focused on how animals are able to maintain a certain orientation across a distance of hundreds of kilometers. These studies have shown the great variety of sources of information that animals can use to orientate themselves, as well as their redundancy. But, for successful navigation to occur, animals not only have to know how to orientate themselves, they also have to know which direction they should be orientated and for how long. Direction and duration have mainly been studied in short-distance navigation. These studies have shown that animals can use a variety of strategies to locate a given goal. Whether an animal uses a specific strategy will depend on its sensory capabilities and also on the conditions imposed by the environment.