Arthropod navigation: ants, bees, crabs, spiders finding their way

Arthropods are a much-studied group of animals, characterized by a hard exoskeleton and no internal bones. They include insects, spiders, and hard-shelled invertebrates such as crabs. This chapter reviews four broad topics on the navigational behavior of arthropods. The first is path integration, the ability to keep track of the straight-line distance and direction from one's starting point. The second is route behavior, in which landmarks figure in various ways. The third is image matching, the use of landmarks to pinpoint a target. The fourth is map-like navigational behavior. Recent reviews on arthropod navigation are plentiful, but there is no point in simply re-presenting all the data. Rather, this chapter aims for a selection tailored for an audience from the field of comparative cognition.