Unexplained animal knowledge

[Laird]

The 'enduring' mystery of how birds know when Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre is filling with water

By Bethanie Alderson for ABC News on 28 June, 2025.

Several theories of how birds know when Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre is filling exist, including them having the ability to detect infrasound, barometric pressure or smell the flooded salt flats on the breeze. 

"There's been theories like scouts … if pelicans send up observers to go and recce inland sites and come back and tell their mates that there's food on offer," Mr Pedler said.

"I guess there's some rationale for that because pelicans can fairly easily fly long distances, they get up to high altitude on thermals and then they can cruise and go for a look.

"It's still an open case and there's a lot more work to understand this really fascinating behaviour."

Perhaps this is related to Rupert Sheldrake's work on the mystery of how homing pigeons know how to return home.

Feel free to post other examples of unexplained animal knowledge. A general example I can think of is that of so-called "instinct": how an animal from birth knows what (s)he needs to do to survive and interact as that animal, which doesn't seem to be explicable merely in terms of genes.

The 'enduring' mystery of how birds know when Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre is filling with water

By Bethanie Alderson for ABC News on 28 June, 2025.


Perhaps this is related to Rupert Sheldrake's work on the mystery of how homing pigeons know how to return home.

Feel free to post other examples of unexplained animal knowledge. A general example I can think of is that of so-called "instinct": how an animal from birth knows what (s)he needs to do to survive and interact as that animal, which doesn't seem to be explicable merely in terms of genes.

IIRC there's an experiment that suggested homing pigeons use magnetic field effects? I'll try to look it up.  

edit: Neurons in a pigeon’s brain respond to magnetic fields

Earth's magnetic field pulls pigeons back to base

[Laird]

IIRC there's an experiment that suggested homing pigeons use magnetic field effects? I'll try to look it up.  

edit: Neurons in a pigeon’s brain respond to magnetic fields

Earth's magnetic field pulls pigeons back to base

I seem to remember that Rupert tested these sort of theories by moving the roost after the pigeons left, and they were still able to return to it, so, while it might be a partial explanation, it doesn't seem to be the full explanation.

I seem to remember that Rupert tested these sort of theories by moving the roost after the pigeons left, and they were still able to return to it, so, while it might be a partial explanation, it doesn't seem to be the full explanation.

Ah I'd be curious about this, as I had mentioned the experiment using Auckland's magnetic distortion to Sheldrake over email and he'd replied it was quite interesting.

Sadly it seems the ability to converse with him over email has gotten more difficult, given he never replied to my last inquiry.

[Laird]

Ah I'd be curious about this

Here's a page on his site with a video (which I think is where I remember this from) in which he generally critiques the idea of homing by magnetic field (from about 1:45 to 3:50), then describes his (modest) experiment with a moving roost (from about 6:48 onwards):

https://rupertsheldrake.substack.com/p/r...mystery-of

Here's his description of the more extensive (but not quite going to plan) experiment that was inspired by that discussion:

Pigeons Find Home on Moving Ship