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Moo North: Cattle and Deer May Sense Earth’s Magnetic Field
Google Earth photos and field studies reveal animals lining up north-south.
​ By JR Minkel on August 25, 2008

Forget cow tipping—next time you want to mess

with a bovine friend, try waving a magnet in its
face.

Researchers have found that when grazing or

resting, cattle and deer tend to point their
bodies toward Earth's magnetic poles, which
suggests they are able to sense magnetic fields
in the same way as many smaller animals.

German and Czech researchers used Google Earth satellite images to look at 8,510
domestic cattle in 308 pastures located randomly across six continents. They also
studied body alignment in 2,974 red and roe deer in the Czech Republic, either by
photographing the animals or checking the impressions they left in snow.

The team reports in Proceedings

of the National Academy of
Sciences USA that the animals
tended to point north or south but
not in other directions. When the
researchers were able to examine
the position of the head in the case
of red and roe deer, they found the
animals tended to point north.

The group ruled out other reasons, such as wind or sun, for why grazing animals might
orient themselves that way. There was no consistent wind pattern among the different
locations, study author Hynek Burda, a zoologist at the University of Duisburg–Essen in
Germany, says. And if the animals were basking in the sun, researchers would have seen
them standing outside of one another's shadows.

More tellingly, in places such as the coastal U.S. where the direction of the magnetic
north pole differs from geographic north (the latter defined by Earth's axis of rotation),
the group found that cattle positioned themselves toward the magnetic poles.

Researchers have found evidence for a magnetic sense in animals ranging from fruit flies
to mice and mole rats to fish, amphibians and birds (but not humans). The study shows
that "the magnetic sense is virtually ubiquitous," says sensory biologist John Phillips of
Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, who has studied it in other animals. "It's not
simply in the realm of animals that move very large distances."

The sense can come from small magnetic particles in cells, but some animals such as birds
also seem to perceive magnetic fields as changes in light intensity, due to effects of the
fields on light-sensitive pigments in the eye.

To look for a magnetic sense in larger animals, the group's first idea was to study camping
humans, Burda says. "We wanted to study some kind of spontaneous behavior, because
learning experiments can sometimes become very frustrating," he says.

Migratory animals may use the ability to get a sense of direction or construct a map in
their heads for navigating, according to Phillips. Evidence for a magnetic sense in cattle
and deer suggests to him that it may be a more basic tool for mentally mapping their
everyday surroundings and learning new landmarks. "I think it'll…make us rethink what
this kind of sensory ability is used for," he says.
It may also come in handy if you're ever lost in a cow pasture.
Power lines disrupt the magnetic alignment of cows and deer
BY ED YONG

PUBLISHED MARCH 16, 2009

Farmers and herders have known for centuries that

herds of cattle have an uncanny ability to all point
in the same direction. Last year, a group of German
and Czech scientists discovered the reason behind
this alignment – unbeknownst to humans for
thousands of years of domestication, these animals
have a magnetic sense. The team used Google
Earth satellite images to rule out alternative
explanations like the wind and the sun, and show
that cow and deer herds tend to point towards
magnetic north like a living, hoofed compass
needle.

Now, the same team has found that high-voltage power lines, which emit strong magnetic fields
of their own, disrupt the orientation of cattle and deer. Near these lines, their neat alignment
goes astray and they position themselves at random. This disturbance becomes less and less
pronounced as the animals stray further away from the power lines. This is yet further proof
that cows and deer have a magnetic sense that’s only just
become apparent to us.

A wide variety of animals navigate

using the Earth’s magnetic field as a
guide, but until recently, bats and
rodents (including hamsters, mice and
mole rats) were the only mammals to
demonstrate this sense. In fact, the
ability may be much more widespread,
for these groups are small and easily tested in the kinds of laboratory
experiments that would be impossible with larger creatures. To study
the senses of cows and deer, Hynek Burda from the University of
Duisburg-Essen was forced to be more creative.

He used pictures of herds of animals taken by Google Earth’s satellites to show that they line up
according to the North-South poles, regardless of the position of the sun and in parts of the
world with very different prevailing winds. In this new study, he made use of large magnetic
anomalies caused by the presence of power lines to see if the animals’ behavior was affected.

Electrical pylons deflect the Earth’s magnetic field around them in a radius of up to 30 meters.
The lines running between them produce what are known as “extremely low-frequency
magnetic fields” (ELFMFs). These are strongest at the mid-point where the line sags closest to
the ground and decrease exponentially the further you get from the line.

Burda looked at satellite images of 153 herds of European cattle grazing within 150 metres of
power lines, and found that they had no preference in their directions. In contrast, images of 111
herds in open pastures showed that they were significantly aligned along the north-south axis.
The same was true for roe deer, which the team observed first-hand. They witnessed 201 herds
grazing in open areas and saw that they faced along a rough north-south axis. However, 47
herds straying near power lines were randomly aligned. Neither species was lining up to the
direction of the cables themselves. These observations are powerful indicators that the animals’
stances were not primarily set by the positions of the sun.

Their positions even varied at different distances from the power lines, becoming more and
more natural as the intensity of the man-made magnetic fields fell. If the power lines were
running in an east-west direction, individual cows directly underneath tended to face in the
same east-west direction, but those standing further and further away progressively shifted to
the typical north-south alignment. Likewise, animals standing under north-south power lines
also tended to face in a north-south direction, although their deviation from this standard
direction became less and less as they got further away.

This new study provides yet more support for the magnetic sense of cows, but why and how
they do it is still a mystery. Other mammals such as mole rats and bats rely on magnetic crystals
called magnetite; pigeons carry magnetite in their beaks too.

Another method – the so-called

“radical-pair” hypothesis – involves a
light-sensitive molecule called
cryptochrome, which is used by
light-detecting cells in our eyes to sense
blue light. When cryptochrome is
activated, it forms a pair of “free
radicals” – molecules with lone, unpaired
electrons. Magnetic fields can affect
whether these electrons “spin” together
or not, and that in turn affects how long
cryptochrome stays active for. Through cryptochrome, animals may actually be able to see
magnetic fields as visual patterns.

The benefits that cows and deer gain by detecting magnetic fields are just as unclear as the
means through which they do it. There are many possibilities. Synchronizing the direction of
the herd could make it easier to graze efficiently or escape predators effectively. It could help
them to navigate as they move to fresh pastures (although deer also align magnetically while
they’re resting). The most intriguing reason of all, which the group put forward in their last
paper, is that magnetic alignment could make some bodily processes function more effectively.
Google Earth shows that cow and deer herds align like compass needles
BY ED YONG PUBLISHED AUGUST 25, 2008

FOR CENTURIES, FARMERS have known that their livestock not only gather in large herds but also
tend to face the same way when grazing. Experience and folk wisdom offer several possible reasons
for this mutual alignment. They stand perpendicularly to the sun’s rays in the cool morning to absorb
heat through their large flanks, or they stand in the direction of strong winds to avoid being unduly
buffeted and chilled.

But cows and sheep don’t just line up during chilly spells or high wind. Their motivations for doing so
during warm, pleasant and unremarkable weather, or indeed in the dead of night, have been a
mystery until now. In a new paper, Sabine Begali from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany
spied on aligned herds of cows and deer using satellite images from Google Earth.

The images revealed a striking behavior that had been going unnoticed for millennia, right under the
noses of herdsmen and hunters – their herds were lining up in a north-south line like a living
compass needle. Influenced by a magnetic sense that has only just become apparent, their default
point of reference is not the source of wind or the angle of the sun, but the Earth’s magnetic poles.

Google Herds
With Google Earth’s images at their disposal,
Begali’s team spied on a massive sample of
cattle across six continents, from South Africa
to India to the UK. They recorded the
positions of over 8,500 individuals at more
than 300 sites, including a range of different
breeds, altitudes and times. Their global cattle
census showed that the animals oriented
themselves along a north-south axis so consistently that the odds of them doing so by chance was less
than one in a hundred thousand.

The animals don’t quite point towards the north pole, but instead face slightly off in the direction of
magnetic north. As this position, known as magnetic declination, changes across the face of the
planet, so too does the direction that local herds prefer to face.

Deer aligned themselves to the magnetic poles even more strongly than cattle. Begali’s team travelled
to more than 200 locations in the Czech Republic and observed the positions of almost 3,000 roe deer
and red deer in the field. When the animals had moved, the team also recorded the alignment of the
body prints that the resting animals left behind in snow. Again, their bodies faced the magnetic north.
Even their heads tended to gaze in that direction (although these, predictably, were more variable due
to their need to scan for lynxes).

Sun and wind

Bengali says that the study’s large sample size has helped the team to rule out other explanations for
this uncanny alignment. Certainly, the typical answers of sun and wind seem less applicable in the
face of such standard behavior across the globe. Unfortunately, Google Earth images aren’t
time-stamped with enough accuracy for the researchers to be able to compare the shots with weather
data. But the fact that the photos exist at all suggests that they were taken on cloudless days, and the
shapes and positions of shadows suggest that the sun was not too bright.
 If cattle were lining up primarily in
response to gusty winds, the majority
of the 308 locations that the team
sampled must have been experiencing
high winds at the time and specifically
in a northerly-southerly direction.
That’s very unlikely, given that
westerly breezes dominate the
Northern hemisphere and
south-eastern trade winds rule the
Southern. If that weren’t enough, wind
atlases show that the prevailing winds in the countries in question vary throughout the year and if
there’s any directional consensus, it’s a westerly one.

So much for the wind; Begali’s data rules out a major influence from the sun too. The satellite images
also recorded the position of the animals’ shadows and these revealed that by and large, they weren’t
getting their bearings from the angle of the sun. And the fact that deer still faced the same way at
night also argues against the sun’s involvement.

There’s a third alternative – some animals including insects and migratory birds can sense polarized
light from the sun and use it to navigate. There’s no evidence that cows or deer have the right retinas
for picking up polarized light and given that they are partially active at night, they don’t fit the typical
profile of polarized light-users, who are usually only active by day.

Magnetic attraction
With these alternatives effectively discarded, only one explanation remains, and it’s the simplest one
– the cows and deer were using the Earth’s magnetic field as their guide. They are not alone; many
other animals, including flies, bees and goldfish, naturally line up like little compasses when there
isn’t anything around to disturb them.

So why do it? That’s still a mystery. One slightly leftfield possibility is that keeping magnetic fields in
symmetry about the axis of your body could affect certain bodily processes. There are tantalizing bits
of evidence to back this up – in humans, the time it takes to drift into REM sleep and the electrical
activity in the brain differs depending on whether we’re facing a north-south direction or an east-west
one.

Alternatively, it could just be that orienting yourself in a constant direction makes it easier to get your
bearings when traveling long distances or making quick getaways. Indeed, both cattle and deer are
naturally social animals that travel large distances across landscapes that are often bereft of
landmarks. A magnetic sense could be good for navigation (as turtles and birds could attest to)
although Bengali cautions that it’s not clear if the animals are even aware of their internal compasses.
It’s possible for creatures to have the capacity to detect magnetic fields (“magnetoreception”), without
consciously sensing them (“magnetoreception“).

Magnetic senses are one of the most enigmatic of animal abilities. Among our fellow mammals, only a
few rodents and one species of bat are known to use internal compasses. Some believe that horses,
dolphins and whales use the same trick but that’s been very hard to prove. Large groups of these
animals don’t lend themselves to careful laboratory experiments. Begali’s innovation was in using
satellites to turn the entire planet into a natural laboratory. Now, it’s time for others to follow up on
her results.
Animal magnetism: Why dogs do their business
pointing north
Dogs align north-south when defecating, foxes pounce
north-east, and that’s just the start. Where does this
magnetic sense come from – and do we have it too?

Every dog owner knows how seriously their pet takes

the decision of where to do its business. First it will
pace in circles, nose to the ground, searching intently
for the perfect spot. Once selected, there are another
few turns and a shimmy until, finally, it is ready to
commit. If you’ve ever wondered what’s going through
a dog’s mind as it does this, the answer could be
something like the spinning of a compass needle. Dogs prefer to defecate with their spine aligned in a
north-south position, and they use Earth’s magnetic field to help
them position themselves.

It has long been suspected that animals such as turtles and birds use
magnetoreception to navigate, but it is becoming increasingly
obvious that many other animals sense magnetism too, seemingly
when they’re doing very little. Insects like to align their bodies along a
north-south axis, as do sleeping
warthogs, fish in tanks, nesting
house mice and foxes on the hunt.
So how are they doing it and why?

According to Google, “Dogs use the Earth's magnetic field when

they're relieving themselves. Not only that, but canines choose to do
so in a north-south axis, a new study published in the journal Frontiers
in Zoology says. The study suggests that dogs are sensitive to small
variations in Earth's magnetic field.
Another article/study reported the following:

Dogs use the Earth’s magnetic field when they’re relieving themselves. Not only that, but canines
choose to do so in a north-south axis, a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology
says.

The study suggests that dogs are sensitive to small variations in Earth’s magnetic field. After
examining 70 dogs — made up of 37 breeds — over two years, 1,893 defecations and 5,582
urinations, researchers found that under “calm magnetic field conditions,” dogs preferred to “excrete
with the body being aligned along the north-south axis,” avoiding east-west altogether. Dogs were
observed in a free-roaming environment, meaning they were not leashed and not influenced by walls
or roads that would influence linear movement.

Why do the dogs prefer the north-south axis and avoid east-west? That was unclear, according to the
study: “It is still enigmatic why the dogs do align at all, whether they do it “consciously” (i.e.,
whether the magnetic field is sensorial perceived (the dogs “see”, “hear” or “smell” the
compass direction or perceive it as a haptic stimulus) or whether its reception is controlled on
the vegetative level (they “feel better/more comfortable or worse/less comfortable” in a certain
direction).”

The scientists write in the report that the findings open “new horizons” for further research in
organisms’ use of magnetic fields for direction, as well as magnetic fields produced by living
organisms.

(Answer these questions below in Google Classroom)

Based on your current knowledge about magnetism, answer the following questions.

What do you think the most interesting I think it was cool how the power-lines interrupted the
new information was about these magnetic fields and caused the cows and deer to face
studies/articles? any direction instead of the north and south.

How can a magnet move/influence

another object without touching it?