Sharks Can Use a ‘GPS’, Defying All Expectations

Sharks Can Use a ‘GPS’, Defying All Expectations
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Who said that sharks can’t be almost as intelligent as humans? The fascinating marine creatures are once again leaving scientists speechless. Sharks are known to not possessing any bones, having good eyesight, having special electroreceptor organs, and more. Whether we like it or not, there’s more when it comes to this group of elasmobranch fish.
According to a new article posted on Yahoo, sharks are able to use their own ‘GPS’ to navigate long distances across the oceans. As the researchers involved declared, it was a long-term hunch that was now confirmed by marine laboratory experiments with a small sample of shark.

Using the Earth’s magnetic field as a GPS

The animal world once again proves that it has some outstanding ways of adapting to the environment. The new research done by Florida State University reveals that sharks are able to use our planet’s magnetic field in a way that nobody would have ever dared to guess: in pretty much the same way we use a GPS. The new discovery pretty much explains why the marine beasts are able to traverse huge distances and even find their way back to feed themselves, breed, and give birth.
Bryan Keller, who is one of the study’s authors and also a marine policy specialist, declared:

We know that sharks can respond to magnetic fields,
We didn’t know that they detected it to use as an aid in navigation … You have sharks that can travel 20,000 kilometers (12,427 miles) and end up in the same spot.

While bonnethead sharks were analyzed, meaning a type of hammerhead, 20 of these samples were exposed to conditions that simulated locations from hundreds of miles away from where they were caught off Florida. When the magnetic cues made the sharks think that they were south of where they should be, the marine creatures began to swim north.
The new findings were published in the journal Current Biology.


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Even since he was a child, Cristian was staring curiously at the stars, wondering about the Universe and our place in it. Today he's seeing his dream come true by writing about the latest news in astronomy. Cristian is also glad to be covering health and other science topics, having significant experience in writing about such fields.

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