Image: Photograph by Christopher Griffith
In Brief
- Dozens of animal species, from ants to whales, have well-documented abilities to detect the geomagnetic field and use it for orientation and navigation.
- After some false starts, researchers may have now located the organs for this magnetic sense, and they are finally understanding the physics that underpins it.
- Some animals may use microscopic magnetic particles to detect magnetic fields; others might harness quantum effects on certain pigments in the eye.
For what must have felt like an interminable six months back in 2007, Sabine Begall spent her evenings at her computer, staring at photographs of grazing cattle. She would download a satellite image of a cattle range from Google Earth, tag the cows one by one, then pull up the next image. With the help of her collaborators, Begall, a zoologist at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, ultimately found that the unassuming ruminants were on to something. On average, they appeared to align their bodies with a slight preference toward the north-south axis. But they were not pointing to true north, which they could have located using the sun as reference. Instead they somehow knew how to orient themselves toward the magnetic north pole, which is hundreds of kilometers south of the geographic pole, in northern Canada.
A follow-up study found more evidence that animals as large as cows can react to the earth’s magnetic field: the aligning behavior vanished in the vicinity of high-voltage power lines that drowned out the relatively subtle signals coming from the planet.
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12 Comments
Add CommentMigration in itself is an exciting, marvelous, fantastic, journey of intrique, surprise and wonder. Here it is in a nut shell (hang on to your britches).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStart with experiment 360
1 live chicken
1 doctors stethoscope
1 bird hood
Holding the hooded chicken and with a doctors stethoscope to it's neck you will find that there is a whirring sound the instant you turn and the sound will stop the instant you stop (you can do morse code). It is this, (kinda like a directional gyro) that allows a fledgling to maintain migration direction set by its parent.
The aura or scent that all life continually emits, are in fact cells and where displaced continue to divide. There is no limit to distance that a brain can retrieve and process these. It is for this reason that allows migration and it’s the reason we see things from other worlds in our dreams.
If you inquire at a salmon fish hatchery as to any damage done to grates blocking the entrance and river, they will confirm that the fish beat the H out of the grate trying to get into the hatchery.
HINT -- The eggs of fish with their individual scent is absorbed by the aura of the material that they are orbitly attached to, rock, plastic etc.
If you want to stock another river simply take the container in which eggs hatched and they will migrate back to their scent. Ungabelievable but true!
I have learned through training as a beach naturalist, that chitons have magnetite-coated teeth on their tongue-like radula. The magnetite is mostly important for being hard enough to allow the chiton to scrape up and feed on endolithic algae. In my training, I have also learned that chitons have a homing ability. They inhabit one spot, go off to feed during the night, then return to their starting point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I saw the article about magnetic sense, I immediately looked to see if chitons were part of the study. But they are not mentioned. I have done a little research on this topic, but find nothing clearly relating the magnetite in the chiton's teeth to its homing ability.
With the publication of this article about animal magnetism, I am curious if there is more definitive information relating the chiton's magnetite to its homing ability. Whether or not there is an answer, I think the next time I point out a chiton to a beach visitor, it would be intriguing to consider the possibility of magnetic sense in this creature and other animals. Thank you!
It continually amazes me how like minded humans seem to magnetically link together. Is this random or is there some great migration of the human spirit moving ever forward yet returning home all at the same time. I keep moving in circles with the tail meeting the head in acts of recognition that I have made some sort of complete circuit between you and I. I also think of the great circuit of water on this planet Rain and snow run down the Himalyas into tributaries and on to great rivers into the seas, feeding the ocean soul who give up her children into the sky to start the cycle once again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd back to the practical magic of magnetism, I have six polish chickens so I will be checking for that sound. My favorite hen Theodora is so tame she would be testable with and without a hood.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee this paper:
1979a Kirschvink, J.L. and Lowenstam, H.A., " Mineralization and magnetization of chiton teeth: Paleomagnetic, sedimentologic, and biologic implications of organic magnetite ," Earth & Planetary Science Letters 44, 193-204.
"Bruce", that is the most informative comment I've read in a long time. I have always suspected that, but didn't know how to look for it or have the time to dedicate to its discovery. Here is you a million "thank yous". Have you discovered if humans have that same skill?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have been researching bird activity prior to earthquakes for nine years and discovered they fail to sing within 24 hours preceding quakes as low as M 1.7 within close range in the San Francisco Bay Area. Other singular cases offered mass bird screeching at 2am in Okinawa prior to a M 6.5 arriving at 5am in 2010. And prior to the 1959 Lake Hebgen M 7.5 quake all of the birds in the area including a vast water fowl population left the area two weeks prior to the event.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCattle take rest sitting north -south so that the blood himoglobin points for better flow with less power from heart to pump.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is assumed that the brain sends out individual signals to preform functions of the body. WRONG
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike condoms gathering together in the vastness of an ocean each chip, atom, molecule, cell, air, water, matter, the dark matter (energy) of space with its planets and stars are as one and it takes all of this just to move your little finger.
@ lbalton, Bonnie Nordby, Joe Kirschvink, JamesDavis, Petra, debu, Sabine Begall, Wolfgang Wiltschko and Davide Castelvecchi.
I really think the ten of us could rewrite the text books! smile
Come on! This is supposed to be Scientific American, NOT woo woo Amercian. unless my leg has been truly and smartly pulled this "aura" stuff is reall out there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmazing and thoughtful it may be that creatures have magnetic senses, possibly associated with instinct and direction finding it hardly supports some notion of "aura or scent that all life continually emits" as Mr. Voight posits, and debu, your comment.. "better flow", seriously. I am not wanting to flame here but if you folks are truly serious woe betide the true "Scientific Amercian".
Instinct and the effects of magnatism on living things is a potentially quite fruitful scientific endeavour but let us not let the woo woo in... please.
If one were more advanced in true science they would know that a cows stomach is capable of producing the energy to activate a light bulb.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChewing the cud produces body energy and surely we all know it takes what is called magnetism to produce what is called electricity. Cattle take rest sitting north -south -- "better flow" - more research is needed.
Thank you, Dr. Kirschvink. (Now I just have so many more questions!)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA genuine scientific suggestion. The controversy about ill-effects from power line magnetic fields may be related to the animal compass. In both there is no agreed mechanism for the field to be sensed or to disturb the chemistry or electronics of the animal, because the energy levels appear too low to break chemical bonds and they are not energetic enough to have thermal effects either. However if an existing photochemical or thermal reaction produces a triplet state, containing unpaired electrons which generate magnetic fields, an external field can alter the chemistry as described under "Magnetic eyes" Cellular chemistry has mechanisms for trapping free radicals, which are molecules containing unpaired electrons, because they can damage the cells and may occur naturally in oxygen respiration. So there may be other biological sources of triplet states, which do not need light and the investigators of the magnetic sense of birds ought to have a close look at the evidence for sensitivity to power line frequencies in animals and humans
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