Earth's Magnetic Field and Inherited Internal Map Make Juvenile Chinook Salmon to Find Ways to Ancestral Feeding Grounds

Earth's Magnetic Field and Inherited Internal Map Make Juvenile Chinook Salmon to Find Ways to Ancestral Feeding Grounds

With the help of Earth's magnetic field and an inherited internal map, juvenile Chinook salmon are able to find ancestral feeding grounds, reveals a study by Oregon State University.

Earlier, it was considered that only loggerhead sea turtles are the ones that have the ability of ancestral migration routes from the time they hatch. But the new research has found juvenile Chinook salmon also possess a sense of direction to their families' migration routes.

An experiment was carried out to test the internal maps of juvenile salmon. For the same, hundreds of juvenile salmon were placed in test tanks and they were given about 10 minutes to get familiar with the environment.

After the given time to acclimate, the researchers interfered with the magnetic field by using coils having electric currents running through them. Co-author of the study Nathan Putman said everyone was surprised that by that time salmon had that ability.

"Before the fish even hit saltwater, they already have a sense of what they should be doing if and when they should find themselves in a certain magnetic field", said Putman. Now, the researchers have been working to know where the precision level of salmon's internal GPS stands. The study will be published this month in the Current Biology.

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