Instincts

[John53]

I'm fascinated by instincts but don't understand them. The photo is of a Grey-tailed Tattler I took near where I live in Port Stephens. They spend most of the year here in Australia but migrate to North-east Siberia to breed a distance of about 10,000 kilometres. That's amazing in itself but even more amazing is that the adult birds depart for the Southern Hemisphere weeks before the young ones, so that means they are somehow hard wired to know where to go. It blows my mind.

 

[Regiomontanus]

Long distance navigation which is not learned is really interesting. There is still so much we do not know. Some species will go to very specific spots over thousands of miles, like you said, yet have never been there before.

 

[The Hammer]

I'm fascinated by instincts but don't understand them. The photo is of a Grey-tailed Tattler I took near where I live in Port Stephens. They spend most of the year here in Australia but migrate to North-east Siberia to breed a distance of about 10,000 kilometres. That's amazing in itself but even more amazing is that the adult birds depart for the Southern Hemisphere weeks before the young ones, so that means they are somehow hard wired to know where to go. It blows my mind.

View attachment 55954

Salmon do this every year in my region. Traveling from the ocean, up rivers and waterfalls, to the lakes where they were born so that they can mate. The journey is so exhausting that they die after mating.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'm fascinated by instincts but don't understand them. The photo is of a Grey-tailed Tattler I took near where I live in Port Stephens. They spend most of the year here in Australia but migrate to North-east Siberia to breed a distance of about 10,000 kilometres. That's amazing in itself but even more amazing is that the adult birds depart for the Southern Hemisphere weeks before the young ones, so that means they are somehow hard wired to know where to go. It blows my mind.

View attachment 55954

I recall reading of an experiment where they moved young birds from one breeding site to another and radically altered their migration path. They didn't follow the adults from the new site, but followed their programming and instinctual route that put them well off their mark. Don't take this as gospel. It was something I read a long time ago and I could be remembering wrongly, I'll have to see if I can find the paper. But I agree. The phenomena of instinct is pretty amazing.

 

[John53]

I recall reading of an experiment where they moved young birds from one breeding site to another and radically altered their migration path. They didn't follow the adults from the new site, but followed their programming and instinctual route that put them well off their mark. Don't take this as gospel. It was something I read a long time ago and I could be remembering wrongly, I'll have to see if I can find the paper. But I agree. The phenomena of instinct is pretty amazing.

Grey-tailed Tattlers are closely related to Wandering Tattlers but they spend their life in the Northern Hemisphere, breeding in Russia and spending the rest of the year in North America and Europe. It appears sometimes the hard wiring goes haywire and Wandering Tattlers are sometimes seen here in Aus, and Grey-tailed are accidental visitors to North America. I'm sure there's some lesson in there how the migration routes started.

 

[John53]

I recall reading of an experiment where they moved young birds from one breeding site to another and radically altered their migration path. They didn't follow the adults from the new site, but followed their programming and instinctual route that put them well off their mark. Don't take this as gospel. It was something I read a long time ago and I could be remembering wrongly, I'll have to see if I can find the paper. But I agree. The phenomena of instinct is pretty amazing.

I've just remembered a report I read some years ago about migrating birds in North America. Can't remember too much about it but I know it wasn't shore birds and I think they bred on Islands then migrated to the mainland. They had found out that the young birds took a different route t the adults. I'll have to see if I can find it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

This doesn't have anything to do with your OP except it is about birds. But I love the title of this research report from a very well-respected journal.

It wouldn't let me post a link, so here is the title.

Spoiler

Great tits can reduce caterpillar damage in apple orchards

 

[Dan From Smithville]

My knowledge of instinct and migration is more extensive in insects. In North and Central America, there is concern about the migratory population of monarch butterflies. The species isn't threatened, but the migratory behavior is, since that population is threatened by habitat destruction in their overwintering grounds in Mexico.

In monarchs, there are populations that do not migrate or at least not very far, but the eastern population is the one famous for its migration.

 

[John53]

My knowledge of instinct and migration is more extensive in insects. In North and Central America, there is concern about the migratory population of monarch butterflies. The species isn't threatened, but the migratory behavior is, since that population is threatened by habitat destruction in their overwintering grounds in Mexico.

In monarchs, there are populations that do not migrate or at least not very far, but the eastern population is the one famous for its migration.

I was reading about monarchs in Australia, the theory was something like they get blown off course to Vanuatu and New Caledonia then blown again to Australia where they died until European settlement and introduction of plants they feed on (milk weed I think?) they have started to become common.

Thanks for the PDF, interesting.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I was reading about monarchs in Australia, the theory was something like they get blown off course to Vanuatu and New Caledonia then blown again to Australia where they died until European settlement and introduction of plants they feed on (milk weed I think?) they have started to become common.

Thanks for the PDF, interesting.

Here is why I enjoy these discussions. I learned something new. I had no idea that the monarch was found in Australia. Thanks for updating my database for me. It isn't a perfect database, but it fits nicely under my hair.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I was reading about monarchs in Australia, the theory was something like they get blown off course to Vanuatu and New Caledonia then blown again to Australia where they died until European settlement and introduction of plants they feed on (milk weed I think?) they have started to become common.

Thanks for the PDF, interesting.

You are welcome. I think those things are great and don't get the recognition in pest management that they deserve.

 

[John53]

Here is why I enjoy these discussions. I learned something new. I had no idea that the monarch was found in Australia. Thanks for updating my database for me. It isn't a perfect database, but it fits nicely under my hair.

https://trishansoz.com/trishansoz/animals/monarch-butterfly.html

Wanderer Butterfly

I've been seeing them since I was a kid and didn't know what they were until I uploaded a pic of one to a FB camera group and someone told me. This is after seeing the big clumps of them in trees in California so speaks volumes about my insect ID abilities lol

 

[Dan From Smithville]

https://trishansoz.com/trishansoz/animals/monarch-butterfly.html

Wanderer Butterfly

I've been seeing them since I was a kid and didn't know what they were until I uploaded a pic of one to a FB camera group and someone told me. This is after seeing the big clumps of them in trees in California so speaks volumes about my insect ID abilities lol

That's great information. Thanks.

Usually, concern is about the extirpation of a species, but in the case in North America, it is the extirpation of a population and the migratory behavior of that population that is the concern.

How all these monarchs flying around the eastern US manage to all migrate to a very small location in Mexico is amazing. Those migrating to Mexico in the fall are the descendants of those that migrated into the US in the spring.

 

[John53]

That's great information. Thanks.

Usually, concern is about the extirpation of a species, but in the case in North America, it is the extirpation of a population and the migratory behavior of that population that is the concern.

How all these monarchs flying around the eastern US manage to all migrate to a very small location in Mexico is amazing. Those migrating to Mexico in the fall are the descendants of those that migrated into the US in the spring.

I got told it's like a multi part migration? Each generation makes only about 1/3 of the journey?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I got told it's like a multi part migration? Each generation makes only about 1/3 of the journey?

It does occur in generational steps. One source says it may take five generations to migrate to the US. I am not sure if that means to the US itself or to the northern parts of the summer range.

 

[John53]

It does occur in generational steps. One source says it may take five generations to migrate to the US. I am not sure if that means to the US itself or to the northern parts of the summer range.

I was originally told by a YEC who used it as evidence that evolution was wrong. He may have said 5 generations, I probably wasn't really paying attention to him lol

 

[Dan From Smithville]

https://trishansoz.com/trishansoz/animals/monarch-butterfly.html

Wanderer Butterfly

I've been seeing them since I was a kid and didn't know what they were until I uploaded a pic of one to a FB camera group and someone told me. This is after seeing the big clumps of them in trees in California so speaks volumes about my insect ID abilities lol

According to the research I have read, the eastern and western populations are genetically indistinct and not different subspecies. The western species just moves up and down the coast of California and Baja California, Mexico.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I was originally told by a YEC who used it as evidence that evolution was wrong. He may have said 5 generations, I probably wasn't really paying attention to him lol

I think the conclusion of five generations is fairly recent within the last 10 years and is based on isotope ratios found in the wings. The average is four generations and it does include the move to the northern part of the range in southern Canada. Each generation moves north as adults until the fall when they head south.

I used to work on a moth species called the black cutworm that is a pest of corn. It migrates in on warm fronts moving north east out of the southwest and Mexico in the spring. Some of the flights are so large, they can be observed with radar. What is interesting about some of these flights of migrating insects is if the air temp drops to 50 degrees F or lower, they will fold up their wings and drop out of the sky like it is raining insects.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I was originally told by a YEC who used it as evidence that evolution was wrong. He may have said 5 generations, I probably wasn't really paying attention to him lol

How was this being used to support an argument against evolution?

 

[John53]

How was this being used to support an argument against evolution?

I can't really remember, I was more interested in the butterfly fact than his nonsense. I think it was something like only an intelligent designer could have created them because of the multi generational migration. Probably why he lets childhood cancer go unchecked, he's too busy programming bugs. @Subduction Zone might remember, I think he was in on the conversation, it happened on another forum.