Homing phenomena must be considered an important aspect of animal
behaviour on account of their frequent occurrence, their survival value,
and the variety of the mechanisms involved. Many species regularly rely
on their ability to home or reach other familiar sites, but how they
manage to do this is often uncertain. In many cases the goal is attained
in the absence of any sensory contact, by mechanisms of indirect
orientation whose complexity and sophistication have for a long time
challenged the skill and patience of many researchers. A series of
problems of increasing difficulty have to be overcome; researchers have
to discover the nature of orienting cues, the sensory windows involved,
the role of inherited and acquired information, and, eventually, how the
central mechanisms process information and control motory responses.
Naturally, this book emphasizes targets achieved rather than areas
unexplored and mysteries unsolved. Even so, the reader will quickly
realize that our knowledge of phenomena and mechanisms has progressed to
different degrees in different animal groups, ranging from the mere
description of homing behaviour to a satisfactory insight into some
underlying mechanisms. In the last few dacades there have been promising
developments in the study of animal homing, since new approaches have
been tried out, and new species and groups have been investigated.
Despite this, homing phenomena have not recently been the object of
exhaustive reviews and there is a tendency for them to be neglected in
general treatises on animal behaviour.
