Philopatry

In animal behaviour philopatry is the tendency of a migrating animal to return to a specific location in order to breed or feed. It derives from the Greek 'home-loving', although it can be applied to more than just the area that an animal was born in. Philopatry can manifest itself in several ways. Species that return to their birthplace in order to breed are said to exhibit natal philopatry. Species that return in consecutive years to the same breeding site or territory exhibit breeding philopatry or site fidelity. Migrating animals also exhibit philopatry to certain important areas on their route; staging areas, stop-overs, molting areas and wintering grounds. Philopatry is generally believed to help maintain the adaptation of a population to a very specific environment (i.e., if a set of genes has evolved in a specific area, individuals that fail to return to that area may do poorly elsewhere, so natural selection will favor those who exhibit fidelity).

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The level of philopatry varies within migratory families and species.

The term is sometimes also applied to animals that live in nests but do not remain in them during an unfavorable season (e.g., the winter in the temperate zone, or the dry season in the tropics), and leave to find hiding places nearby to pass the inactive period (common in various bees and wasps); this is not migration in the usual sense, as the location of the hiding place is effectively random and unique (never located or revisited except by accident), though the navigation skills required to relocate the old nest site may be similar to those of migrating animals.