An animal's innate ability to return to its territory after travelling away from it.
scientists report that some garden snails have a homing instinct
Example sentencesExamples
The relocation operation relies on the birds' excellent natural homing instinct, which compels them to return to the site where they hatched.
Because both are anadromous species with weak homing instincts, they colonized coastal streams far from the original points of introduction.
Over generations of grazing on the same land, the flock has developed a homing instinct, which means that they do not stray from their pastures.
His homing instinct was strong, and he struggled onward.
The homing instinct of stem cells has been exploited in animal experiments to deliver a 'suicide gene' to tumour cells, leaving normal tissues unharmed.
On the edges of the old city a few foxes lope, a few late drinkers follow their homing instinct.
All money nowadays seems to be produced with a natural homing instinct for the Treasury.
The sport of pigeon racing is built around a central mystery: the strange homing instinct of the pigeon.
The latest animal to display an extraordinary homing instinct is Basil, the Welsh cob.
Nobody knows for certain why birds react in this way and why they have a homing instinct.