Bird Brains Can Sense Magnetic Fields With The Flick of a Switch

After a long-distance trip under the polite, if slightly repetitive instruction of your favorite GPS app, nothing is worse that being told how to navigate your own neighborhood.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Bird Brains Can Sense Magnetic Fields With The Flick of a Switch

After a long-distance trip under the polite, if slightly repetitive instruction of your favorite GPS app, nothing is worse that being told how to navigate your own neighborhood.

more…

I have yet to see proof that bird brains can detect magnetic fields at all. Other than the extremely strong magnetic fields of TCMS. The original publication on homing pigeons detecting magnetic ffields was flawed, it would never be approved for publication these days. And the presence of magnetite granules in the brain is likely to be sheer coincidence, dozens of animal species have them, so many that it is unlikely that they have anything to do with navigation.

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Bird Brains Can Sense Magnetic Fields With The Flick of a Switch

After a long-distance trip under the polite, if slightly repetitive instruction of your favorite GPS app, nothing is worse that being told how to navigate your own neighborhood.

more…

I have yet to see proof that bird brains can detect magnetic fields at all. Other than the extremely strong magnetic fields of TCMS. The original publication on homing pigeons detecting magnetic ffields was flawed, it would never be approved for publication these days. And the presence of magnetite granules in the brain is likely to be sheer coincidence, dozens of animal species have them, so many that it is unlikely that they have anything to do with navigation.

How does the fact that many animals have this feature show that it isn’t used for navigation?

And if animals that do long range navigation don’t use magnetic fields, what do they use?