10 animals with the best sense of direction

In the vast and often unpredictable world of natural species, some animals possess extraordinary navigational skills that even put most advanced GPS systems to shame. Let us take a closer look at these ten wonders of nature.

These animals locate their position by employing the signals of the sun and the Earth's magnetic field. They fly home with a high level of accuracy, even if they have been released several hundred miles from home.

Monarchs employ their circadian rhythm and internal solar compass to navigate the thousands of miles that they have to travel to Mexico. Their precision in finishing multigenerational migrations is impressive.

Sea turtles employ ocean currents and magnetic fields as a biological GPS to travel across seas and ultimately get back to the exact beach of their birth.

Employing magnetic maps and smell trails, salmon migrate to spawn in the same river years after hatching from freshwater and journeying to the sea.

These ants employ step counting and sun tracking even in the broad, open desert to find their nest.

They make use of their sense of magnetic fields to navigate open sea, which allows them to make their way back to specific feeding or mating grounds after thousands of miles of underwater travel.

Dung beetles utilise the Milky Way to locate their positions at night. Using starlight, they roll dung pellets along a straight course to preclude competition.

Harbor seals can travel precisely across long distances, even in conditions of low visibility, through the use of their underwater structures and coastland landmarks' memory recall.

Apart from employing echolocation to find prey and navigate around obstacles, bats also use polarised light and magnetic cues to navigate long distances in unfamiliar regions.

Using their noses to sense magnetic fields, rainbow trout can find spawning grounds and map complex river systems with uncanny precision.