Wild Hypothesis Says Animals Sense Magnetic Fields Thanks to Microbes in Their Bodies - ScienceAlert

For decades, evidence has shown that all sorts of animals can sense magnetic fields and even use them to navigate their way around the planet.

The most established explanations for how animals might detect magnetic fields revolve around two central hypotheses.

The second hypothesis is magnetite-based magnetoreception, in which crystal clusters of iron in animals' bodies enable them to detect magnetic fields.

According to the researchers, it's possible that animals can detect magnetic fields symbiotically via bacteria living inside them – specifically, magnetotactic bacteria (MTB), which orient themselves along magnetic field lines due to a chain of magnetic structures inside their bodies called magnetosomes.

That said, as the team acknowledges, none of the new evidence directly confirms that tiny, magnet-laden microbes living inside animals are what give their hosts the amazing ability to navigate via magnetic fields.