Winner of the Association of American Publishers PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences A world-renowned researcher of animal behavior reveals the extraordinary orienteering skills of desert ants, offering a thrilling account of the sophisticated ways insects function in their natural environments. Cataglyphis desert ants are agile ultrarunners who can tolerate near-lethal temperatures when they forage in the hot midday sun. But it is their remarkable navigational abilities that make these ants so fascinating to study. Whether in the Sahara or its ecological equivalents in the Namib Desert and Australian Outback, the Cataglyphis navigators can set out foraging across vast expanses of desert terrain in search of prey, and then find the shortest way home. For almost half a century, Rüdiger Wehner and his collaborators have devised elegant experiments to unmask how they do it. Through a lively and lucid narrative, Desert Navigator offers a firsthand look at the extraordinary navigational skills of these charismatic desert dwellers and the experiments that revealed how they strategize and solve complex problems. Wehner and his team discovered that these insect navigators use visual cues in the sky that humans are unable to see, the Earth’s magnetic field, wind direction, a step counter, and panoramic “snapshots” of landmarks, among other resources. The ants combine all of this information to steer an optimal course. At any given time during their long journey, they know exactly where to go. It is no wonder these nimble and versatile creatures have become models in the study of animal navigation. Desert Navigator brings to light the marvelous capacity and complexity found in these remarkable insects and shows us how mini brains can solve mega tasks.

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Secret World of Weather and The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs, learn to tap into nature and notice the hidden clues all around you Before GPS, before the compass, and even before cartography, humankind was navigating. Now this singular guide helps us rediscover what our ancestors long understood—that a windswept tree, the depth of a puddle, or a trill of birdsong can help us find our way, if we know what to look and listen for. Adventurer and navigation expert Tristan Gooley unlocks the directional clues hidden in the sun, moon, stars, clouds, weather patterns, lengthening shadows, changing tides, plant growth, and the habits of wildlife. Rich with navigational anecdotes collected across ages, continents, and cultures, The Natural Navigator will help keep you on course and open your eyes to the wonders, large and small, of the natural world.

Uses the early-tenth-century Celtic poem the Voyage of Brendan, an account of the saint's journeys across the sea in search of the "promised land of the Saints," as a guide to our own spiritual call and adventure.

The U.S. Army's official guide to teaching soldiers the invaluable skill of map reading, determining location, and navigating.

In this third and final volume of Julia Turks Navigators Dream series, the Navigator makes one final voyage into the realm of tarot to ultimately find enlightenmentbut it will be much more difficult than a simple turn of the cards for our psychiatrist-turned-philosopher and mystic. In Seatime, the hero ascends into the Major Arcana of the tarot deck via a sailboat led by the Higher Self of the Navigator, known as Guide. Joined together with a motley crew, the sailboat takes the Navigator and Guide deep within the islands, or Sephiroth, of the Mystic SEA. These are not tropical islands intended for peace and comfort; each island is different than the last, and each carries a mystery that must be unraveled. Although the Navigator has learned much amidst the tarot cards, has the hero learned enough to make it home? Externally, the Navigator has difficulties, but internally there are problems as well; as the riddles unravel, so do the deeply held psychological issues of the Navigator. By the end, the mysteries of the Major Arcana might be solved, but will the Navigator be able to heal the wounds built prior to the tarot adventure?