How do sea turtles navigate across entire oceans?
Sea turtles can find the exact beach where they were born after traveling thousands of miles across open ocean.
The answer
Sea turtles possess an extraordinary ability to detect Earth's magnetic field, using it as a biological GPS to navigate vast oceanic distances. Research has shown that hatchling loggerhead turtles imprint on the unique magnetic signature of their natal beach and use this information decades later to return and nest. They can sense both the intensity and inclination angle of the geomagnetic field, essentially reading a magnetic map. Some species travel over 12,000 kilometers between feeding and nesting grounds, and females return to within a few kilometers of their birth beach with remarkable precision.
Source: Current Biology
- sea turtles
- navigation
- magnetoreception
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