Question

What is the difference between piloting, path integration (dead reckoning) and true navigation? Which one do you think is more helpful to a migrating animal?

Answer 1

In piloting,the migratory animals use particular and fixed visual references they come across such as specific landmarks to find their destination whereas in dead reckoning,the animals trace the migratory location based on the distance,and speed over time from their fixed past position from where they start the migratory process whereas in true navigation which is also known as map-based navigation,the organims/animal builds up a representation of the environmental layout in his mind and positions itself within that so that it can determine its own position in relation to the migratory or the goal location.

All animals follow specific pathways but according to me path integration( dead reckoning) would be more helpful to a migrating animal.