Relevance of visual cues for orientation at familiar sites by homing pigeons: an experiment in a circular arena

Whether pigeons use visual landmarks for orientation from familiar location s has been a subject of debate. By recording the directional choices of bot h anosmic and control pigeons while exiting from a circular arena we were a ble to assess the relevance of olfactory and visual cues for orientation fr om familiar sites. When the birds could see the surroundings, both anosmic and control pigeons were homeward oriented. When the view of the landscape was prevented by screens that surrounded the arena, the control pigeons exi ted from the arena approximately in the home direction, while the anosmic p igeons' distribution was not different from random. Our data suggest that o lfactory and visual cues play a critical, but interchangeable, role for ori entation at familiar sites.