Cognitive maps in the wild: revealing the use of metric information in black howler monkey route navigation.

ABSTRACT: When navigating, wild animals rely on internal representations of the external world - called 'cognitive maps' - to take movement decisions. Generally, flexible navigation is hypothesized to be supported by sophisticated spatial skills (i.e. Euclidean cognitive maps); however, constrained movements along habitual routes are the most commonly reported navigation strategy. Even though incorporating metric information (i.e. distances and angles between locations) in route-based cognitive maps would likely enhance an animal's navigation efficiency, there has been no evidence of this strategy reported for non-human animals to date. Here, we examined the properties of the cognitive map used by a wild population of primates by testing a series of cognitive hypotheses against spatially explicit mo

SUBMITTER: de Guinea M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8380465 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature