Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: paul.fr on 24/07/2007 09:43:27
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Living oop north there are many "pigeon fanciers" (always thought that was a rather curious term). This got me thinking (yes, it's true), if i was to strap a fridge magnet to said pigeons would this make their navigation skills slightly awry?
[Mod edit - subject altered to turn it into a question - CS]
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In the latest study, researchers found that they could train pigeons to recognize when an anomalous magnetic field was present
the birds would hop to one end of the cage when the field was normal and to the other when the field became abnormal.
In other words, they were detecting differences in the magnetic field.
The pigeons were left to try the same trick with magnets attached to their upper beaks, and could no longer perform the stunt
http://www.scq.ubc.ca/the-compasses-of-birds/
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It's interesting that that the experiment was done with magnets and pigeons - I remember reading about a similar experiment, when I was a child, that was conducted during the early 1950s - a little bit before I was born - where homing pigeons had magnets attached to their heads which appeared to cause confusion re navigation. I wonder if this is just a re-release of the same experiment.
We'd need to see the source references.
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Hitting a pigeon over the head with a large magnet would certainly confuse it. [:D]