Equatorial sandhoppers use body scans to detect the earth's magnetic field.
Adults of Talorchestia martensii were individually released in a confined environment, with and without the natural magnetic field, under the sun and in a dark room. The sandhoppers scanned the horizontal component of the magnetic field by left and right oscillations of the entire major body axis. The frequency of this behaviour increased in a zeroed magnetic field, as did the frequencies of other behavioural indicators that reflect the difficulty in identifying the ecologically efficient orientation direction (sea-land axis). Therefore, like head scans in birds, body scans seem to be used by equatorial sandhoppers to detect the magnetic symmetry plane.
Ugolini
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Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e genetica, Universitá di Firenze, Via Romana 17, 50125 Firenze, Italy. ugolini_alb@dbag.unifi.it
D033304:Amphipoda / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology; D004777:Environment; D008280:Magnetics; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D011984:Sensory Receptor Cells / Q000502:physiology; D016082:Solar System