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First published online October 10, 2003

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Waved albatrosses can navigate with strong magnets attached to their head

Henrik Mouritsen^1,*, Kathryn P. Huyvaert², Barrie J. Frost³ and David J. Anderson⁴

¹ Fachbereich Biologie, University of Oldenburg, D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany
² Department of Biology, University of Missouri-St Louis, St Louis MO 63121-4499, USA
³ Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 2Y1
⁴ Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7325, USA

View larger version (15K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Satellite tracks of two control birds tested in 2000.

View larger version (39K): [in a new window]   Fig. 3. Satellite tracks of sham birds. (A,B) Birds returning with both shams still in place. (C,D) Tracks from birds returning with the nasal sham piece still in place. (E-I) Tracks of birds having lost both shams en route.

View larger version (39K): [in a new window]   Fig. 4. Satellite tracks of magnet birds. (A-C) Birds returning with both magnets still in place. (D-G) Tracks from birds returning with the nasal magnet still in place. (H,I) Tracks of birds having lost both magnets en route.

View larger version (126K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Satellite picture showing the cloud cover between Galápagos and Perú on 23 June 2001 at 13:15 h local Galápagos time.

View larger version (17K): [in a new window]   Fig. 5. Comparisons of total trip length, outward speed and homeward speed between treatment groups. No significant differences are observed. White bars, all birds; grey bars, birds with at least one magnet/sham in place upon return; black bars, birds with both magnets/shams in place upon return.

View larger version (12K): [in a new window]   Fig. 6. Orientation of albatrosses returning from the Peruvian upwelling zone with magnets or shams still attached to their head. Each filled circle indicates the orientation of one section of the return journey, between two satellite fixes at least 100 km apart, for magnet and sham birds, respectively. The broken line indicates the correct homeward direction to Galápagos, and the broken circle indicates the length of the mean vector (solid arrow) required for significance at the 0.001 level according to the Rayleigh test.

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