Nature & Environment

How do animals use magnetism to navigate ?

By T.K. Randall
July 12, 2012 ·  10 comments

Image Credit: Mike Cline While it has long been suspected that animals such as birds and fish possess some form of magnetic sense allowing them to travel large distances with impressive precision, the exact biological process through which this occurs has not been fully understood. This new study has helped researchers determine that some fish like trout have cells in their noses that act like a magnetic compass and enable the animals to find their way.

"Our results show that the magnetically identified cells clearly meet the physical requirements for a magnetoreceptor capable of rapidly detecting small changes in the external magnetic field," the research team reported.

Source: Sky News | Comments (10)

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