Friday 13 August 2021

Black howler monkeys adapt mental maps like humans

Ever since humans began committing their view of the world to flat slabs of rock and papyrus, we had a sense that our mental maps are laid out in much the same way. However, our mental maps are nothing like paper maps. Humans rely on route-based maps. These internal maps, also used by animals, are composed of well-trodden routes linking frequently visited locations, with little understanding of where these routes lie relative to one another. Yet, humans are able to supplement these rudimentary representations with knowledge of the distances we cover and direction to take occasional short-cuts. Yet many creatures negotiate far more complex environments and need to navigate efficiently, so being able to combine knowledge of separate routes to take short cuts would be useful. Can other animals navigate like humans?