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How could carrier pigeons deliver letters accurately, even to distant places?

  • April 23, 2023
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Over time, carrying letters became difficult and people looked for a faster and easier way to get the desired messages from one place to another. At this point

How could carrier pigeons deliver letters accurately, even to distant places?

Over time, carrying letters became difficult and people looked for a faster and easier way to get the desired messages from one place to another. At this point the pigeons began to be trained and then “carrier pigeons” popped up.

So, how do these creatures manage to convey the letters they carry despite traveling many miles? they could deliver them to their destination without fail. Have you ever thought?

More than 3,000 years ago, it was found that pigeons have great orientation and can consistently find their way back to their nest accurately.

carrier pigeon

pigeons; They are easy to catch, strong reproductive power, generally docile and quite adaptable. Long ago mainly rock pigeons, birds that know how to find their way home”carrier pigeonsselected and hybridized to the concept of ”.

These rock pigeons are carefully and carefully trained, gradually removed from their nest, and then free to fly to their homes and desired locations. was provided.

The first hypothesis as to what is behind these rock pigeon abilities is that they have strong “magnetic sensing” abilities.

dove ready to send a letter

In other words, magneto-perception is the ability of these creatures to perceive and direct themselves based on magnetic fields in certain life forms. an innate talent. Aside from pigeons, this ability is found in varying amounts in many different bird species, but not in humans.

This ability allows pigeons to interact with the natural directions of the magnetic fields that flow between the north and south poles, rather than east and west. travel long distances north and south It can perform much better.

According to a study conducted in the US, homing pigeons used low-frequency sound waves emitted by almost anything to mentally map their surroundings and get to and from their requested destination.

carrier pigeon

These capacitances of theirs are better than humans to about 0.1 Hertz. can hear at much lower frequencies arises. Such waves come from the earth itself, actually from the oceans and also from the earth’s crust.

Pigeons according to this theory to create acoustic maps of their environment it uses low-frequency infrasound waves and accurately finds their destination, even as they oscillate miles away from where they live.

This approach; It not only explains how the pigeons perfectly get where they want to go, but also allows us to deduce why they rarely get lost.

Strong winds, aircraft and various other phenomena when these sound waves are distorted, the birds become disoriented and can be driven off course.

Another view of pigeons’ ability to find their destination is related to the sense of smell of these creatures.

carrier pigeons in the war

More than 50 years ago, researchers sniffed the air components of homing pigeons from different wind directions.scent cardHe claimed they could improve.

These creatures mentally draw a regional map of what they smell, and so they sort of use this map to find their destination. compass as they use. What scents the birds smell, however, remains a mystery.

The carrier pigeons, known to have been used for many years for various purposes, were in the past the main news carrier of diplomacy and even military operations in particular.

carrier pigeon at war

This feature belongs to them war pigeons They were even used to transport letters during World War II. Looking at historical points, Genghis Khan used homing pigeons to maintain communication with the far reaches of his empire, and these creatures played an important role in announcing important events such as the Olympics even in ancient Greece.

mailman pigeon

While it’s hard to believe that homing pigeons still exist despite the development of means of communication and communication networks, these animals are cut out for them in many parts of the world. continues to fulfill this task.

Sources: Science ABC, Popular Science, The Science Breaker

Source: Web Tekno

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