sea turtles have magnetic sense for Longitude
Archives: sea turtle in the ocean Masterpiece of a magnetic sense to use for longitude.
As Kenneth Lohmann and Nathan Putman of the University of North Carolina currently in the journal Current Biology reports, there is probably the most difficult part of navigating the open sea in the determination of longitude and the respective east-west position.
"sailors have required centuries to figure out how to determine the long-term ocean voyages of longitude. Our study shows for the first time how an animal this is accomplished" Monday, February 28, 2011
How Does Nielson Know Dvr
so Putman.
, it seems, perceive the sea turtles from place to place varying magnetic signatures to determine by their respective position in the room and set off automatically in the right direction. It is already known to use that some animals, including sea turtles, magnetic signals for the determination of latitudes can, but this ability was considered for the determination of longitude so far not advantageous.
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According to researchers is the ability the turtles in the fact justified that the animals perceive not only a feature of the earth's magnetic field, but a combination of two properties: the inclination angle of the Earth's magnetic field to the horizontal, the so-called inclination and the strength of the geomagnetic field.
"Near the equator the magnetic field lines run almost parallel to the surface," explain , Putman and Lohmann. If one moves from the equator to the north, also increase the angle of the field lines to become steeper, the closer one approaches the pole, where they are then directed almost at right angles down into the earth. (...) The strength of the magnetic field varies here is usually in the vicinity of the pole near the equator and most weakest. Both parameters seem to vary from north to south, much more constant than from east to west. For this reason, until now, most scientists also suspected that the Earth's magnetic field can be used only useful for production of latitude information.
"The fact that loggerhead turtles can exercise both parameters means that the animals can obtain more information from the Earth's magnetic field originally known as"
so Putman. The combination of slight variations of inclination and magnetic field strength there are therefore unique signatures for individual places on the earth's surface as they know the animals and adopt them can. Their discovery was made by the researchers in studies of newly hatched sea turtles, as they are the animals two simulated magnetic field signatures of two places at the beginning and end of their migration route by the Atlantic Ocean, placed in a round basin, exposing. Both simulated magnetic location markers had the same latitude but different longitudes.
the animals were exposed to the field, as it corresponded to a location on the western side of the Atlantic near Puerto Rico, then swam diese in Richtung Nordosten. Wurden die Meeresschildkröten dem Feld entsprechend eines Ortes auf der östlichen Seite des Atlantiks in der Näher der Kapverdischen Inseln ausgesetzt, schwammen die Tier gen Südwesten.
"Die Ergebnisse unserer Untersuchungen lösen ein altes Mysterium des Verhaltens der Tiere, wie sie aber auch von Bedeutung für den Schutz der Meeresschildkröten haben können" , so Lohman. "Je mehr wir über die Sensorik der Meeresschildkröten auf ihrer Wanderschaft wissen, desto besser können wir auch ihre Wanderwege schützen."
Auch für die Entwicklung neuer Navigationstechnologien könnten die Erkenntnisse der Forscher eine wichtige Role-play. MORE NEWS ON
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- - - sources: international scientific aktuell.de / unc.edu / cell.com 
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