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Animals & Wildlife
Creatures & Their Records
The biggest, the fastest and the genuinely strange.
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Which vertebrate is believed to have the longest lifespan?
How Animals Find Their Way
Animals cross oceans and continents with no map, and we are still working out how.
About this topic
Migration poses a problem that looks impossible: an animal that has never made a journey arrives at a destination thousands of kilometres away, often at a specific site, sometimes having set off alone. The answers involve several senses working together — a magnetic sense, the position of the sun and stars, smell, and in some species inherited direction. None of it is fully explained, and the honest state of the science is that we know a good deal about what animals can detect and much less about how they combine it.
Questions & answers
How Animals Find Their Way: all 10 questions and answers
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
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1Which bird makes the longest annual migration of any animal?
- A The barn swallow
- B The Arctic tern Correct
- C The albatross
- D The swift
Answer: B. The Arctic tern
Why: It travels between Arctic and Antarctic regions each year, covering tens of thousands of kilometres and seeing more daylight than any other animal.
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2Monarch butterfly migration is unusual because what?
- A No single butterfly completes the round trip Correct
- B They fly only at night
- C They swim part of the way
- D They migrate only once a decade
Answer: A. No single butterfly completes the round trip
Why: The return journey spans several generations, so the butterflies arriving have never seen the destination their ancestors left.
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3Salmon returning to spawn find their home stream mainly using what?
- A Sight
- B Sound
- C Water temperature alone
- D Smell Correct
Answer: D. Smell
Why: They appear to imprint on the chemical signature of their birth stream as juveniles, then use the magnetic field for the ocean stage.
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4Many migrating birds are thought to sense direction using what?
- A The colour of the sky
- B Wind direction alone
- C The Earth's magnetic field Correct
- D Air pressure alone
Answer: C. The Earth's magnetic field
Why: The mechanism is still debated, with proteins in the eye and iron-containing tissue in the beak both proposed.
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5Which mammal makes the longest migration?
- A The elephant seal
- B The grey whale Correct
- C The caribou
- D The wildebeest
Answer: B. The grey whale
Why: Grey whales travel between Arctic feeding grounds and Mexican breeding lagoons. Caribou make the longest overland migration.
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6Wildebeest migration in East Africa follows what?
- A Seasonal rainfall and the grazing it produces Correct
- B A fixed calendar date
- C Ocean currents
- D Predator movements
Answer: A. Seasonal rainfall and the grazing it produces
Why: The route shifts year to year with the rains, which is why the timing cannot be reliably predicted far in advance.
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7How do many nocturnal migrating birds orient themselves?
- A By moonlight brightness
- B By listening for the coast
- C They do not orient at all
- D By the pattern of stars Correct
Answer: D. By the pattern of stars
Why: Experiments in planetariums showed young birds calibrate on the rotation of the night sky, learning where the axis of rotation lies.
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8Sea turtles returning to nest typically go where?
- A A different beach each time
- B Open ocean
- C The beach where they hatched Correct
- D The nearest available beach
Answer: C. The beach where they hatched
Why: They appear to imprint on the magnetic signature of the beach as hatchlings and use it to return decades later.
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9Bats navigating in darkness rely primarily on what?
- A Smell alone
- B Echolocation Correct
- C Magnetic sense alone
- D Infrared vision
Answer: B. Echolocation
Why: They emit calls and read the returning echoes. Some species also use magnetic and visual cues on longer journeys.
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10Migration carries a major cost, which is what?
- A Enormous energy expenditure and high mortality Correct
- B Loss of the ability to breed
- C Permanent loss of navigation ability
- D Reduced lifespan in all cases
Answer: A. Enormous energy expenditure and high mortality
Why: Many individuals die en route. Migration persists only where the food or breeding advantage at the destination outweighs that.
Frequently asked questions about How Animals Find Their Way
How many questions are in How Animals Find Their Way?
How Animals Find Their Way has 10 questions and takes about 7 minutes to finish. It is rated Medium and sits in our Animals & Wildlife category.
How is How Animals Find Their Way scored?
Each of the 10 correct answers adds 10 XP, up to 100 XP for a clean run. Wrong answers cost you nothing, and your full question-by-question review is shown at the end.
Are the answers to How Animals Find Their Way explained?
Yes. All 10 questions carry a written explanation of why the correct answer is right, so the quiz works as a study sheet as well as a test.
Can I replay How Animals Find Their Way?
Yes, as often as you like. The questions and the answer options are reshuffled on each run, and you can use Practice Mistakes afterwards to retry only the ones you missed. No account is needed to play.
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