Instead of using Google Maps, imagine how cool it would be to smell your way home — and while we’re at it, imagine “home” is thousands of miles away! Thanks to feel-good news stories about lost pets traveling unfathomable distances to reunite with their families (and especially popular media like the 1993 film, Homeward Bound), you might associate this uncanny ability more closely with dogs and cats. But the decidedly less-cuddly, less-sympathetic salmon can navigate back to their spawning grounds the same way!
In this animated short, Jordan Buxton explains how fish rely on their noses, as well as their sensitivity to Earth’s magnetic fields, to navigate long distances.
