As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Thursday 9 June 2016

New insight into the light-dependent magnetic compass of birds


Date: June 6, 2016
Source: Goethe University Frankfurt

Birds have a light-dependent compass in their eyes. This compass gives them information about the direction of the Earth's magnetic field. Prof. Roswitha Wiltschko's research group at Goethe University Frankfurt, together with French colleagues, has elucidated how this compass works at the molecular level.

Birds have two sensory organs for orientation and navigation in the Earth's magnetic field: They use their beak to measure the strength of the magnetic field, while their eyes provide directional information. One type of cone photoreceptors in the birds' eyes is sensitive to UV light and also contains a form of the protein cryptochrome. Previous studies of the Frankfurt researchers suggested that most likely it is this protein that enables birds to detect the magnetic field.

A cyclic reaction involving one light-dependent and one light-independent step takes place in the cryptochrome. Two radical pairs are formed during this cycle, and their unpaired valence electrons react to magnetic fields. The Frankfurt group, working in collaboration with Pierre and Marie Curie University Paris, have now discovered which of these two radical pairs is crucial for navigation in the Earth's magnetic field.

In a behavioural study on robins, the birds were subjected to two experimental conditions:

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