The ontogeny of a mammalian cognitive map in the real world
Bats performed truly original shortcuts, supporting the hypothesis that they can perform large-scale map-based navigation, and documented how young pups developed their visual-based map, exemplifying the importance of exploration and demonstrating interindividual differences.
Abstract
<jats:title>Knowing their way around</jats:title> <jats:p> The presence of a cognitive map is essential to our ability to navigate through areas we know because it facilitates the use of spatial knowledge to derive new routes. Whether such maps exist in nonhuman animals has been debated, largely because of the difficulty of demonstrating qualifying components of the map outside of a laboratory. In two studies on Egyptian fruit bats, Harten <jats:italic>et al.</jats:italic> and Toledo <jats:italic>et al.</jats:italic> together show that this species's navigational strategies meet the requirements for the use of a cognitive map of their environment, confirming that this skill occurs outside of humans (see the Perspective by Fenton). </jats:p> <jats:p> <jats:italic>Science</jats:italic> , this issue p. <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6500" page="194" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="369" xlink:href="10.1126/science.aay3354">194</jats:related-article> , p. <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6500" page="188" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="369" xlink:href="10.1126/science.aax6904">188</jats:related-article> ; see also p. <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6500" page="142" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="369" xlink:href="10.1126/science.abd1213">142</jats:related-article> </jats:p>