I have heard of lobsters using the earth's geomagnetic field, and now, sharks. How many other animals navigate use the earth's magnetic field? I have also read that indigo buntings travel at nights using stars to guide them. Some species, such as bees, may use the sun...Did now-extinct ice age animals also geonavigate?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-evidence-suggests-sharks-use-earths-magnetic-field-navigate-180977668/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20smithsonianmag%2Fscience-nature%20(Science%20%26%20Nature%20%7C%20Smithsonian.com)&utm_content=FaceBook&fbclid=IwAR0LYTkyKbIqtWiiE5EvmyjC-5x5_xKTb2D8iZQ2riVvMMPEqN2waxgOzLA
New Evidence Suggests Sharks Use Earth’s Magnetic Field to Navigate
I can add frogs and salamanders to your list.
While salamanders have very poor vision, they rely on the magnetic field to a large degree. While frogs and toads also use landmarks.
I noted that captured frogs do look a bit 'confused' when released, turning once or twice in different directions - and then setting off straight toward to pond or lake - even though they might not see the water. (Such as when released at night.)
Last year I gave a little help to a female toad who was very late in her migration to the lake she was supposed to breed in.
When released into the water, she climbed out of the water again onto a bank - while I observed.
And I wondered why she did that, perhaps that she might think she had not travelled far enough and intended to continue.
But instead she stopped, looked in one direction for a while, then turned nearly 120 degrees and observed again while sitting still.
It was then I realised that she did not just tap into the geomagnetic field, but that she also was aware she had been transported and therefore needed to add new visual landmarks. She was aware she needed to recalibrate, though it was at the right lake. It was on the side of the lake and not where she would have arrived following the migration. So despite having a very small brain, frogs and toads use landmarks in the same manner as birds and mammals.
The question also is if humans do so. There's some stories of individuals with an unusually good ability to find the right direction - and in ancient times such might naturally have become skilled navigators. If such persons did use sun and moon, which I do myself despite also having technical tools, or if they also had an ability to tap into the geomagnetic field to some degree is unknown and I am not aware of any study that have been shown this in humans. But as the number of species grow, it certainly cannot be ruled out - perhaps most have lost the ability to rely on this sense.
Many felines use the earth's magnetic field for their navigation. Therefore, cats can find their way home even at a distance of hundreds of thousands of kidometers.
Thank you very much for your replies, Anders Forsgren and Pushkin Sergey Viktoriovich!
Yes I agree about paleopeople, Anders, in that this would have been a useful trait when you are on foot traveling the terrain. There were no roads or cars, no horses in the North America from the end of last ice age till the Spaniards re-introduced them. Paleoindians may have traveled by waterways to speed things up, where that was available.
People today vary in their sense of direction. Some are really good at not getting lost, and others have NO sense of direction.
Following some geonavigate using by fishes, reptiles and sea turtles.
Star navigation, Magnetic Fields,
Solar Navigation.
Joanne P Ballard
My people did indeed use waterways and systems of lakes for travel for millennia, and when the Europeans arrived the rivers and lakes were still used as the main means of transportation up and until the first decades of the 20'th century. While horses of course were in use, the building of a road network did not pick up speed until private cars started to get common, meaning in the 1950's.