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Birds Can See Earth's Magnetic Fields, And Now We Know How That's Possible

posted by mrpg on Sunday September 02 2018, @01:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the so-cool dept.

chromas (from IRC) writes:

ScienceAlert:

The mystery behind how birds navigate might finally be solved: it's not the iron in their beaks providing a magnetic compass, but a protein in their eyes that lets them "see" Earth's magnetic fields.

These findings come courtesy of two papers - one studying robins, the other zebra finches.

The fancy eye protein is called Cry4, and it's part of a class of proteins called cryptochromes - photoreceptors sensitive to blue light, found in both plants and animals. These proteins play a role in regulating circadian rhythms.

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  • (Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday September 02 2018, @08:36PM

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 02 2018, @08:36PM (#729632) Journal
    It was quite a while ago, but ISTR reading about a belt that had some kind of mechanisms arranged around it so that the one nearest north would vibrate(?) periodically. Does anyone else remember this?
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