Body Detects Magnetic Fields

a yellow and black honeybee rests on a plant with small green bulbs with a blurry green background

Biological Strategy

Western honeybee

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Image: Benjamin Balazs / Pixabay / Free non-commercial use

Navigate Through Air

Although free from many of the physical obstructions found on land and in water, organisms that move through the air must still avoid hitting each other and objects in their flight path, such as trees and mountains. They also need to navigate from one place to another, which presents a different challenge. They use one strategy to navigate around obstructions and another to move towards their destination. For example, bats use echolocation to detect both obstacles and prey. To navigate during migration, bats also use vision, sun orientation, and likely other strategies.

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Sense Electricity/Magnetism From the Environment

Some living systems use electric or magnetic signals as a way to receive information from their environment. Magnetic and electric fields can help such living systems determine direction, altitude, or location, and electric fields also help living systems find other living systems. Detecting and interpreting electrical and magnetic signals requires specialized techniques. For example, mud-dwelling bacteria use crystals composed of magnetite to sense geomagnetism, which helps orient the bacteria to burrow deeper into the mud.

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Insects

Class Insecta (“an insect”): Flies, ants, beetles, cockroaches, fleas, dragonflies

Insects are the most abundant arthropods—they make up 90% of the animals in the phylum. They’re found everywhere on earth except the deep ocean, and scientists estimate there are millions of insects not yet described. Most live on land, but many live in freshwater or saltwater marshes for part of their life cycles. Insects have three distinct body sections: a head, which has specialized mouthparts, a thorax, which has jointed legs, and an abdomen. They have well-developed nervous and sensory systems, and are the only invertebrate that can fly, thanks to their lightweight exoskeletons and small size.

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The abdomens of honeybees may be able to detect magnetic fields and use them in navigation thanks to magnetite.

“The bodies of honeybees also contain magnetite. In the 1970s, Princeton University zoologist Dr. Joseph Kirschvink showed that the magnetite lies in bands of cells in each segment of the bee’s abdomen. It is most concentrated just below the ganglion (a compact mass of nerve cells).” (Shuker 2001:45)

“‘How do MGs found in the abdomen function as magnetoreceptors’ is an enigma yet to be resolved. Suffice to note that peripheral neurons of insects may play a role independent of the brain, such that a male cockroach can continue with mating, with its head bitten off by his female partner. Certainly, a magnetoreception system for positioning and orientation exists in honeybees, and this simple, primitive, and highly accurate sensing mechanism may be present in all other magnetotactic organisms.” (Hsu et al. 2007:8)

Last Updated August 18, 2016

References

Book

The Hidden Powers of Animals: Uncovering the Secrets of Nature

26/02/2021 | Dr. Karl P. N. Shuker

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Reference

Journal article

Magnetoreception System in Honeybees (Apis mellifera)

PLoS ONE | 24/04/2007 | Chin-Yuan Hsu, Fu-Yao Ko, Chia-Wei Li, Kuni Fann, Juh-Tzeng Lue |

Martin Giurfa

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