An essay on inertial navigation deduced in return habits of the small abalone Sulculus aquatilis
2009
Nakamura, K., Kagoshima Univ. (Japan). Faculty of Fisheries
The locomotion behaviour was monitored indoors to reveal the return habit of the small abalone Sulculus aquatilis. Before sunset, the animal was put centrally on a convex floor of 1 m phi and traced to obtain the locomotion track under red light in a dark room. Appearance frequencies were counted about three classified types of the locomotion tracks. The values were compared with those previously obtained on a flat floor to examine differences attributable to the alteration of a surface curvature. For eight individuals, the repeating observations yielded 131, 31 and 82 appearance frequencies of the locomotion types as moving, return, and stationary, respectively. The effect of the convex substratum was indistinct because the above values approximately equaled the previous results. The return habit showed commonly a smooth trip of a looped track that was similarly observed on a flat substratum in the previous study. From geometrical consideration of looped tracks on a plane, a kind of inertial navigation was deduced to drive the return habit of abalone.
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