Spatial orientation is essential for all animals that have to successfully change locations during e.g. foraging, homing or migration. Arthropods occupy many different ecological niches and, thus, have evolved a vast number of orientation strategies while moving by air, land, and water. Some of these strategies seem to be rather simple but are perfectly adapted to the behavioural need of an animal. Other strategies are rather complex and require multiple sensory inputs. But what exactly are the fundamental differences between the various strategies and can we define a common terminology that facilitates debates on the underlying orientation strategies exhibited by arthropods? Here, we review examples of spatial orientation behaviours employed by arthropods and provide a unified terminology about their orientation strategies. In addition to behavioural findings, we also consider the current knowledge of the underlying neuronal network to provide a broad and common terminology of orientation strategies. According to our terminology, “spatial orientation” is any kind of directed behaviour. These directed behaviours can be divided into four types of spatial orientation. Non-compass orientation is based on local directional information, e.g. taxis. Compass orientation is based on global compass information, such as the use of a magnetic compass, or a time-compensated sky compass. Egocentric navigation is based on positional information collected en route, e.g. path integration. Geocentric navigation is based on positional information collected on site, e.g. map-based navigation. We highlight examples of diverse arthropod species and discuss controversial explanations of arthropod behaviour in space.

空间定位对于所有在觅食、归巢或迁徙等过程中必须成功改变位置的动物来说都是必不可少的。节肢动物占据许多不同的生态位，因此在空中、陆地和水中移动时进化出大量的定向策略。其中一些策略似乎相当简单，但非常适合动物的行为需求。其他策略相当复杂，需要多种感官输入。但是，各种策略之间的根本区别究竟是什么，我们能否定义一个通用术语来促进对节肢动物所表现出的潜在定向策略的辩论？在这里，我们回顾了节肢动物采用的空间定向行为的例子，并提供了关于它们的定向策略的统一术语。除了行为发现之外，我们还考虑了潜在神经元网络的当前知识，以提供广泛和通用的定向策略术语。根据我们的术语，“空间定向”是任何一种定向行为。这些定向行为可以分为四种类型的空间定向。非罗盘方向基于当地方向信息，例如出租车。罗盘方向基于全球罗盘信息，例如使用磁罗盘或时间补偿天空罗盘。以自我为中心的导航基于在途中收集的位置信息，例如路径整合。地心导航基于现场收集的位置信息，例如基于地图的导航。