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The characteristics of a magnet is it attracts metal. But who knew that dolphins are also attracted to magnet? I am not kidding, folks. Lately, a study has found that dolphins are attracted to magnets.

Marine biologists at Universite de Rennes and Institut Universitaire de France conducted a simple experiment. The experiment was conducted in in the delphinarium of Planète Sauvage in France. Here, the outdoor facility consists of four pools, covering 2,000 m² of water surface. In the pool water, scientists kept two identical barrels, one containing a strongly magnetized block, while the other was a demagnetized block. Later, they released six bottlenose dolphins in water and found that the dolphins were roaming around the magnetized block.

It is to be noted here that through echolocation, dolphins locate object. Echolocation works by creating high or low-pitched sounds and measuring the time it takes those sounds to bounce off of nearby objects and back to the host. By using echolocation dolphins can determine how far an object is, what direction it is traveling in, if it is above or below them, how large it is and whether it is a dense or hollow object.

However, from this experiment, now scientists have come to a decision that dolphins are magnetoreceptive (sensitive to magnetic stimuli). In simple word, dolphins are attracted to magnets.

Dorothee Kremers, “Dolphins are able to discriminate between objects based on their magnetic properties, which is a prerequisite for magnetoreception-based navigation. Our results provide new, experimentally obtained evidence that cetaceans have a magenetic sense, and should therefore be added to the list of magnetosensitive species.”

Scientists have published the study in Springer’s journal Naturwissenschaften – The Science of Nature.

Source: Springer

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