Turtles “dance” to orientate in the magnetic field of the Earth

Many migrating animals, such as traveling birds, fish (shark and salmon), sea turtles use the magnetic field of the Earth for navigation. This is called magnetoreception, i.e. the ability to detect a magnetic field and use it for orientation in space. Until now, scientists knew that animals use a magnetic field as a compass to determine where they are. Research published on Wednesday in the journal “Nature” shows that sea turtles are also able to create a magnetic map that contains important places for them, such as nesting or feeding places.

Kayla Goforts from the University of North Carolina, the author of the study, believes that these reptiles are able to learn magnetic coordinates of various places.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina report that the newly discovered turtle talent for creating maps is not associated with their inner compass, which suggests that these reptiles have two separate forms of magnetoreception.

Scientists placed the carpet turtles (Caretta Caretta) in the tank and manipulated his magnetic field variables. Turtles were fed only with strictly defined magnetic parameters. After some time, reptiles learned them and remembered them. As soon as they felt that the field had features related to food, they behaved in a characteristic way named by scientists with “turtle dance”. It consisted in the fact that the animals waved the limbs, opened their mouths and spinning around in the water.

“This is strong proof that turtles can learn magnetic signatures of specific geographical areas,” said scientists.

Researchers do not know how animals tune in this magnetic information. One theory says that some of them may detect the impact of a magnetic field during a chemical reaction between molecules sensitive to light. However, when scientists tried to disrupt this process with so -called radio frequency fields, the turtles were still dancing in place, without interference.