Abstract
ABSTRACTCamels (Camelus dromedarius) are known to have good navigational abilities and can find their home after displacement to far places; however, there are no studies available on the navigational strategies employed by the camels in homing behavior. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate these strategies by displacing female camels equipped with GPS trackers 6 km away from home to totally unfamiliar locations. The experiments comprised displacing nursing or non-nursing female camels 6 km from their living pens to an unfamiliar release site. Some camels were taken to the release site on foot, others were hauled on a truck, both during daytime and nighttime. Displacements journeys were either in a straight direction to the release points, or they consisted of a convoluted path. As a result, camels that had straight outward journeys were able to return home efficiently and rather directly, but camels that had convoluted trips to the release point failed to do so. Moreover, impairing olfactory, visual, and auditory inputs by using mouth/nose muzzles, eye covers and headphones did not affect homing ability. Based on these experiments the most likely hypothesis is that during their small-scale round trips the camels relied on path integration, and that this strategy is disrupted when the camels were subjected to disorientation procedures before release.
Highlights
Camels (Camelus dromedarius) are a hallmark of the Arabian desert
Camels (Camelus dromedarius) are known to have good navigational abilities and can find their home after displacement to far places; there are no studies available on the navigational strategies employed by the camels in homing behavior
Subjects Camels were recruited from the Advanced Scientific Group (ASG) collection
Summary
Camels (Camelus dromedarius) are a hallmark of the Arabian desert. There has been a remarkable paucity of research on the natural, wild behavior of camels (Lethbridge et al, 2010). Even though camels are known as “desert ships”, their navigational abilities have not yet been studied. A camel owner told me, ‘I had camels transferred from my farm near Omani borders to an island off Abu Dhabi. The camels went missing and were later found in the old farm. They swam and travelled all the way to get there’. Despite the anecdotes on the amazing ability of camels to cross vast stretches of deserts, the scientific literature is void of detailed studies on how the camels accomplish these tasks
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