Animals are capable of true navigation if, after displacement to a location where they have never been, they can determine their position relative to a goal without relying on familiar surroundings, cues that emanate from the destination, or information collected during the outward journey. To date, only a few animals have been shown to possess true navigation, all of them vertebrates. Those few invertebrates that have been carefully studied return to target areas using path integration, landmark recognition, compass orientation, and other mechanisms which cannot compensate for displacements into unfamiliar territory. The experiments described here demonstrate that the spiny lobster Panulirus argus oriented reliably toward a capture site when displaced 12-37 km to unfamiliar locations, even when deprived en route of all known orientation cues. These results are the first evidence for true navigation in an invertebrate animal.

To learn more about this research check the article entitled "True Navigation and Magnetic Maps in Spiny Lobsters" by Larry C. Boles and Kenneth J. Lohmann in the January 2, 2003 issue of Nature.