ArticleFrontiers in zoology2013
Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field.
Article in Frontiers in zoology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Spatial Cognition in the Field: A New Approach Using the Smartphone's Compass Sensors and Navigation Apps.Journal of Intelligence · 2026Article
- The Effect of High-Voltage Power Lines on Magnetic Orientation of Domestic Dogs.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Magnetic sense-dependent probabilistic decision-making in humans.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Visual perception of emotion cues in dogs: a critical review of methodologies.Animal cognition · 2023Review
- Magnetotactic bacteria and magnetofossils: ecology, evolution and environmental implications.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2022Review
- Human magnetic sense is mediated by a light and magnetic field resonance-dependent mechanism.Scientific reports · 2022Article
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- Environmental sources of radio frequency noise: potential impacts on magnetoreception.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2022Review
- The importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2022Article
- How the Geomagnetic Field Influences Life on Earth - An Integrated Approach to Geomagnetobiology.Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life · 2021Review
- The Untrained Response of Pet Dogs to Human Epileptic Seizures.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Enhancing student scientific literacy through participation in citizen science focused on companion animal behavior.Translational animal science · 2021Article
- Corneal sensitivity is required for orientation in free-flying migratory bats.Communications biology · 2021Article
- Cryptochromes in Mammals and Birds: Clock or Magnetic Compass?Physiology (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Article
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- Ectosymbionts alter spontaneous responses to the Earth's magnetic field in a crustacean.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Guide dogs' navigation after a single journey: A descriptive study of path reproduction, homing, shortcut and detour.PloS one · 2019Article
- In what sense are dogs special? Canine cognition in comparative context.Learning & behavior · 2018Review
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Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionSeveral mammalian species spontaneously align their body axis with respect to the Earth's magnetic field (MF) lines in diverse behavioral contexts. Magnetic alignment is a suitable paradigm to scan for the occurrence of magnetosensitivity across animal taxa with the heuristic potential to contribute to the understanding of the mechanism of magnetoreception and identify further functions of magnetosensation apart from navigation. With this in mind we searched for signs of magnetic alignment in dogs. We measured the direction of the body axis in 70 dogs of 37 breeds during defecation (1,893 observations) and urination (5,582 observations) over a two-year period. After complete sampling, we sorted the data according to the geomagnetic conditions prevailing during the respective sampling periods. Relative declination and intensity changes of the MF during the respective dog walks were calculated from daily magnetograms. Directional preferences of dogs under different MF conditions were analyzed and tested by means of circular statistics.
resultsDogs preferred to excrete with the body being aligned along the North-South axis under calm MF conditions. This directional behavior was abolished under unstable MF. The best predictor of the behavioral switch was the rate of change in declination, i.e., polar orientation of the MF.
conclusionsIt is for the first time that (a) magnetic sensitivity was proved in dogs, (b) a measurable, predictable behavioral reaction upon natural MF fluctuations could be unambiguously proven in a mammal, and (c) high sensitivity to small changes in polarity, rather than in intensity, of MF was identified as biologically meaningful. Our findings open new horizons in magnetoreception research. Since the MF is calm in only about 20% of the daylight period, our findings might provide an explanation why many magnetoreception experiments were hardly replicable and why directional values of records in diverse observations are frequently compromised by scatter.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.