Five animals that have built-in GPS better than Google Maps

Salmon

Farmed intensively across the world for food, salmon can navigate their way with ease when in their natural habitat. The secret? They inherit a built-in magnetic sense from their parents and are pretty much left on their own from the moment they are born. After they grow older, these creatures find their way back to the stream where they were born, as they know that it is a good place to spawn. To do so, they use Earth’s magnetic field like a compass, and once they find the river where they came from, they switch to their sense of smell and start to find their way back to the exact location.

Sea Turtles

Another marine animal with the ability to navigate the vast ocean, sea turtles also use the Earth’s magnetic field like a natural compass. Different parts of the coastline emit varying magnetic signatures, and turtles remember these magnetic markers to return to particular locations. Similar to salmon, even after travelling thousands of kilometers across featureless oceans, they don’t just return to the same coastline; they come back to the exact beach where they were born.

Homing pigeons use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate their way (Source: Freepik)

Dung Beetles

The way dung beetles navigate seems straight out of science fiction, but it is true. These tiny insects navigate with the help of stars and the Milky Way galaxy. Their primary food source is animal dung, which they use to create a dung ball. After performing a brief ritual, they use celestial navigation with the help of the sun, moon, and the Milky Way to determine the correct path before setting off.

Homing Pigeons

Homing pigeons use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate their way from one place to another, especially on cloudy days. However, when the sky is clear, these birds navigate using the position of the sun, compensating for its movement across the sky with their internal circadian clock. These creatures can build an ‘odour map’ of their surroundings, associating wind-borne scents with direction.

Whales

It is believed that whales perceive Earth’s magnetic field, which guides them for thousands of kilometers over open sea without causing them to become lost. Humpbacks cross as much as 16,000 km annually, travelling between equatorial warm breeding grounds and cold feeding grounds in polar waters. Aside from magnetic fields, whales are thought by some to use the sun, stars, and even ocean sounds that travel long distances to find their direction.