Rapid coordination of followership and leadership roles in homing pigeons navigating with unfamiliar partners
Joe Morford, Patrick J. Lewin, Lucy Larkman, Gayatri Kumar, Joy W Kinuthia, Takao Sasaki, Richard P. Mann, Christopher Krupenye, Dora Biro
This study examines how familiarity between homing pigeons affects leader-follower dynamics during navigation, finding that asymmetric information transfer occurs initially but stabilizes over time with little impact on navigation performance.
bioRxiv · Jul 8, 2026 · PreprintAnimal Behavior & Cognition