The regular, often seasonal movement of animals between distinct locations, typically driven by the search for food, breeding sites or milder climate as conditions shift through the year. Migration takes strikingly different forms across the animal kingdom: some species travel in a single lifetime, others complete the journey only through several generations in sequence, as with the monarch butterfly, whose individuals flying south have never made the trip before and whose return north is completed by their offspring. Not every migration crosses the widest distances; the emperor penguin's annual march between open ocean feeding grounds and inland breeding colonies on Antarctic sea ice covers far less distance than the monarch's continental crossing, but is no less regular or essential to the species' survival.
Facts
PeriodicityTypically seasonal and annual, though timing, distance and even direction vary by species and by population within a species. 1 ScaleIndividual and population level, ranging from a single lifetime journey to multi-generational relay migrations such as the monarch butterfly's. 1 First DescribedDanish schoolteacher Hans Christian Cornelius Mortensen began scientific bird ringing in 1899, fitting aluminum leg rings stamped with unique numbers to European starlings, the first systematic method for tracking individual migration routes and destinations rather than relying on general observation. 2 Connections
Associated With
Source Hibernation (Wikipedia)
Demonstrated By
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Estuaries are a classic corridor for migratory fish and birds moving between fresh water, the open sea and the shore.
Source Estuaries (NOAA Ocean Service)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Sky Island (Wikipedia)
Source UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Demonstrates
Source Animal Migration (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
2. Bird Ringing (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHistory sectionQuote, History section
Ringing of birds for more extensive scientific purposes was started in 1899 by Hans Christian Cornelius Mortensen, a Danish schoolteacher, using aluminium rings on European starlings.
Animal Migration (Wikipedia)
Lead section
Animal migration is the relatively long-distance movement of individual animals, usually on a seasonal basis.
Monarch butterfly migration passage
In some migratory butterflies, such as the monarch butterfly and the painted lady, no individual completes the whole migration.
Lead section, causes of migration sentence
The cause of migration may be local climate, local availability of food, the season of the year or for mating.
In birds section, Arctic tern sentence
The Arctic tern has the longest migration journey of any bird: it flies from its Arctic breeding grounds to the Antarctic and back again each year, a distance of at least 19,000 km (12,000 mi), giving it two summers every year.
Demonstrates: Serengeti, Mammals passage, Serengeti great migration sentence
Mass migration occurs in mammals such as the Serengeti 'great migration', an annual circular pattern of movement with some 1.7 million wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of other large game animals, including gazelles and zebra.
View the SourceMigration (National Geographic Education)
Opening paragraph, first sentenceQuote, Opening paragraph, first sentence
Migration is a pattern of behavior in which animals travel from one habitat to another in search of food, better conditions, or reproductive needs.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Estuaries (NOAA Ocean Service)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationDemonstrated By: EstuaryView the Source Sky Island (Wikipedia)
WikipediaDemonstrated By: Sky Island, Characteristics section, mountain quail altitudinal descent in winterQuote, Demonstrated By: Sky Island, Characteristics section, mountain quail altitudinal descent in winter
These birds live in high elevations when free of snow, and instead of migrating south for the winter, they migrate down.
Hibernation (Wikipedia)
Associated With: Hibernation, Evolution of hibernation section, In endothermic animals subsectionQuote, Associated With: Hibernation, Evolution of hibernation section, In endothermic animals subsection
This is a very similar mechanism to the evolution of insect migration, where instead of bodily functions like metabolism getting paired with seasonal indicators, movement patterns would be paired with seasonal indicators.
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