New evidence confirms that loggerhead turtles learn magnetic coordinates.
The loggerhead turtle uses the Earth’s magnetic field to create a personal map of its favorite places, according to research published on Wednesday, further demonstrating the vast navigational abilities of migratory animals.
Some animals that cross long distances across the globe, such as birds, salmon, lobsters and sea turtles, are known to navigate using the magnetic field lines that cross the Earth from the North Pole to the South Pole.
Loggerhead turtles and their ability to create magnetic maps
Scientists knew that animals used this magnetic information as a compass to establish where they were.
Now these new indications increasingly suggest that sea turtles such as the loggerhead (Caretta Caretta), which are found in all the world’s oceans, are also capable of drawing up a whole map.
Now, new evidence increasingly suggests that sea turtles such as the loggerhead (Caretta caretta), which are found in every ocean on the planet, are also capable of drawing up a whole magnetic map, with their favorite places for nesting or feeding.
This implies that migratory animals “learn the magnetic coordinates of their destination”, as if they had a GPS, according to a study in the journal Nature led by Kayla Goforth of the University of North Carolina.
The research provides the first “direct evidence that an animal can learn and remember the natural magnetic coordinates of a geographical area”.
Exactly how they achieve this remains a mystery.
The researchers discovered that the turtles’ talent for mapping was independent of their internal compass, which suggests that the two forms of “magnetoreception” work differently.
For the experiment, the scientists placed young loggerhead turtles in a tank surrounded by a magnetic coil that replicated the magnetic field of the Atlantic Ocean.
Turtle dance
For two months, the scientists changed the magnetic field in the tank every day, replicating the conditions between the US coast and the Gulf of America.
However, the turtles were only fed when they received magnetic information from one of the areas.
When the turtles anticipated that there was food, they would flap their fins, open their mouths and spin in circles in the water.
The researchers filmed this behavior, which they named the “turtle dance”.
