Homing Lobsters: Fancy navigation, for an invertebrate

Scientists willing to drive boats and cars in convoluted patterns say that spiny lobsters are the first animals without backbones to pass tests for the orienteering power called true navigation.

This capability lets homing pigeons and a few other animals figure out not just compass orientation–which way is north–but also their current address on the planet, explains Larry Boles of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Some birds, turtles, and salamanders can get back on track even after researchers enclose them in windowless containers and move them by a twisted route to an unfamiliar place. Bees and ants, however, get lost. People generally succeed at similar challenges only with the h