Magnetoreception in animals

Animal Navigation is an area of science which has witnessed a vast amount of progress in the latter part of the twentieth century. A key part of its focus has been upon avian navigation, which has seen a series of recent developments published in Nature. In particular is the development of a model of navigation based upon magnetoreception.

Initially magnetoreception was thought to be solely based upon the interaction of the geomagnetic field and magnetite which is present within certain animals; in birds it is located in the beak. This was found to respond to local changes in the geomagnetic field as a result of varying crust and rock structure. This however, only provided the