Captive loggerhead sea turtles do a cute dance when anticipating food, a behavior that led researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill to a significant discovery published in Nature. Lead author, Kayla Goforth, found that sea turtles use Earth’s magnetic field to memorize feeding sites. Through conditioning, the team found that turtles associated specific magnetic signatures with food, displaying the “turtle dancing behavior” when exposed to the magnetic fields. Surprisingly, the research showed sea turtles have both a magnetic map sense and a magnetic compass sense that detect magnetic fields differently. The study sheds light on how migratory species use these senses, a topic that continues to intrigue scientists.
https://www.unc.edu/posts/2025/02/12/dancing-turtles-unlock-scientific-discovery/