ALBATROSSES may use smell to find food and navigate the oceans. Gabrielle
Nevitt of the University of California in Davis studied the behaviour of
foraging albatrosses and petrels around South Georgia Island in the South
Atlantic. She found that they are sensitive to odours in the air released by
krill and phytoplankton living beneath the waves (The Biological
Bulletin, vol 198, p 245).
Patches of plankton are often associated with undersea features and these
provide olfactory 鈥渓andmarks鈥� that the birds may use to find their way around.
鈥淏irds can smell at least as well as many mammals,鈥� says Nevitt. 鈥淚 think odour
landmarks are important for long-distance foragers.鈥�