Flickr.com/photos/judybaxter/ Cattle graze in a north-south direction. image:42865:1::0

Many species such as birds and salmons use the Earth’s magnetic fields (north-south poles) for migration. Some studies have proved that mammals (bats) use a “magnetic compass” to help their sense of direction in the absence of clear signs.

Wild deer have displayed this behavior for thousands of years, but only recently scientists and others have noticed this phenomenon. And now the domesticated cattle also appear to display this behavior.

Dr. Sabine Begall from University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany studied the magnetic sense of mole rats, an African mammal species that live mostly in underground tunnels. She explored further to see whether other animals also exhibited this behavior and has found that they are widespread among animals.

Dr. Begall and her team first focused on the natural behavior of domestic cattle. They survey Google Earth images of 8,510 grazing and resting cattle in 308 fields across the globe. They analyzed the pictures in details and observed a marked behavior with most of the cattle: they faced either north or south directions. This study showed that the sun’s relative position and the winds had no influence on the cattle, only the magnetic north and south directions.

Dr Begall told BBC:

In Africa and South America, the cattle (were) shifted slightly to a more north-eastern-south-western direction…But it is known that the Earth's magnetic field is much weaker there.

When a Scottish cattle farmer was told about this study, he said he had never noticed this behavior before.

He told BBC: "[They] all sit down before it rains [and] huddle together in a circle formation during blizzards. But from a cow's point of view, that's just sensible."

The team also studied the Google Earth pictures of wild deer in Czech Republic and found a majority of them grazing and resting, facing northwards with one-third facing southwards.

Dr. Begall speculates this could be an “anti-predatory behavior” as a sort of protection mechanism against known predators.

Professor John Phillips, a sensory biologist from Virginia Tech University, said this sixth magnetic sense might be present in all animal kingdoms.

Now the scientists are trying to find what part of the body helps the animals orient this way.

Begall has published this study in the journal “Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences”.

Have you noticed this phenomenon before?