Experiments suggest that these navigational abilities are partly instinctive. In one famous experiment a young seabird from the British Isles was taken across the Atlantic by plane to Boston, 3,200 miles away. It was released and was back in its next twelve and a half days later. THE ARCTIC TERN This seabird holds the record for long-distance migration. Arctic Tern breed in northern Canada, Greenland, northern Europe, Siberia, and Alaska. In late August they set off on an 11,000-mile journey which takes them south past the western coasts of Europe and Africa to the southern tip of Africa (9,000 miles in 90 days). They then fly around to the Indian Ocean and down to Antarctica, where they spend the Antarctic summer. On the way back they sometimes make a complete circle of Antarctica before returning to their breeding grounds. The round trip is about 22,000 miles in eight months (150 miles a day when they are flying). The Arctic Tern sees more hours of daylight than any other creature because it experiences two summers a year-one in the Arctic region and one in the Antarctic. These regions have almost constant daylight in summer. One tern, which was tagged with a ring in Norway as a chick, died in exactly the same place, twenty-seven years later. Presumably, it had made the journey twenty-seven times. THE EUROPEAN FRESHWATER EEL European Freshwater Eels, which look like snakes but are really fish, begin and end their lives in the Sargasso Sea, southeast of Bermuda. As eggs and larvae they drift for three years toward Europe, changing both shape and color as they reach the freshwater estuaries of European rivers. They spend the next nine to nineteen years in rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds. As they approach old age they seem to return to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. Many eels which have found their way into ponds and lakes come out of the water and travel over land, slithering through damp grass. When they reach the ocean, they make their way to the Sargasso, where they spawn and die. No eels make the journey twice. The eel has an acute sense of smell, which is used for
Experiments suggest that these navigational abilities are partly instinctive. In one famous experiment a young seabird from the British Isles was taken across the Atlantic by plane to Boston, 3,200 miles away. It was released and was back in its next twelve and a half days later. THE ARCTIC TERN This seabird holds the record for long-distance migration. Arctic Tern breed in northern Canada, Greenland, northern Europe, Siberia, and Alaska. In late August they set off on an 11,000-mile journey which takes them south past the western coasts of Europe and Africa to the southern tip of Africa (9,000 miles in 90 days). They then fly around to the Indian Ocean and down to Antarctica, where they spend the Antarctic summer. On the way back they sometimes make a complete circle of Antarctica before returning to their breeding grounds. The round trip is about 22,000 miles in eight months (150 miles a day when they are flying). The Arctic Tern sees more hours of daylight than any other creature because it experiences two summers a year-one in the Arctic region and one in the Antarctic. These regions have almost constant daylight in summer. One tern, which was tagged with a ring in Norway as a chick, died in exactly the same place, twenty-seven years later. Presumably, it had made the journey twenty-seven times. THE EUROPEAN FRESHWATER EEL European Freshwater Eels, which look like snakes but are really fish, begin and end their lives in the Sargasso Sea, southeast of Bermuda. As eggs and larvae they drift for three years toward Europe, changing both shape and color as they reach the freshwater estuaries of European rivers. They spend the next nine to nineteen years in rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds. As they approach old age they seem to return to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. Many eels which have found their way into ponds and lakes come out of the water and travel over land, slithering through damp grass. When they reach the ocean, they make their way to the Sargasso, where they spawn and die. No eels make the journey twice. The eel has an acute sense of smell, which is used for
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