Animals need to navigate between resources such as water, food and shelter and how they achieve this is likely to vary with species. Here, using high accuracy GPS data, we study repeated journeys made by wild zebra (Equus quagga) through a naturally vegetated environment to explore whether they consistently follow the same route through the area or whether they use a range of routes to reach their goal. We use a model to distinguish and quantify these two possibilities and show that our observations are consistent with the use of multiple routes. Our model performs better than assuming uniform angular distribution of trajectories. The typical separation of the routes was found to be small (1.96 m), while the scale at which neighboring trajectories are informative to direction of travel was found to be large (with a confidence interval of (1.19, 26.4) m). Our observations are consistent with the hypothesis that zebra are able to navigate without having to return to previously used routes, instead using numerous different routes of similar trajectories.
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RESEARCH ARTICLE|
01 January 2020
There and back again - a zebra's tale
In collection:
Comparative biomechanics of movement
Hattie Bartlam-Brooks
,
1
Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK
#Author for correspondence: hbartlambrooks@rvc.ac.uk
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Simon Wilshin
,
Simon Wilshin
*
1
Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK
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Tatjana Hubel,
Tatjana Hubel
1
Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK
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Stephen Hailes
,
Stephen Hailes
2
Department of Computer Science, University College of London, London, UK
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Emily Bennitt,
Emily Bennitt
3
Okavango Research Institute, University of Botswana, Maun, Botswana
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Alan M. Wilson
Alan M. Wilson
1
Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK
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1
Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK
Simon Wilshin
*
1
Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK
Tatjana Hubel
1
Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK
Stephen Hailes
2
Department of Computer Science, University College of London, London, UK
Emily Bennitt
3
Okavango Research Institute, University of Botswana, Maun, Botswana
Alan M. Wilson
1
Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK
#Author for correspondence: hbartlambrooks@rvc.ac.uk
*
H.B. (Hattie Bartlam-Brooks) and S.W. (Simon Wilshin) contributed equally to this work.
Received:
10 Jul 2020
Accepted:
19 Oct 2020
Online ISSN: 1477-9145
Print ISSN: 0022-0949
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(EP/M008479/1)
J Exp Biol jeb.232140.
Article history
Received:
10 Jul 2020
Accepted:
19 Oct 2020
Currently Viewing Accepted Manuscript - Newer Version Available
02 Dec 2020
Citation
Hattie Bartlam-Brooks, Simon Wilshin, Tatjana Hubel, Stephen Hailes, Emily Bennitt, Alan M. Wilson; There and back again - a zebra's tale. J Exp Biol 2020; jeb.232140. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.232140
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