Baby sea turtles dance when magnetic field tells food is near - Nature

Baby loggerhead turtles can’t help dancing when they learn food is near from magnetic signatures, scientists say.

Scientists led by Kayla Goforth, a marine biologist at Texas A&M University, published a study titled “Learned magnetic map cues and two mechanisms of magnetoreception in turtles” in Nature on 12th February 2025.

I do not have a full subscription to the Nature journal. So I relied on Scientific American and the Smithonian Magazine to write this post.

Scientists have long known that sea turtles, many of which make epic journeys and come back to the same places, use the earth’s magnetic field to navigate and orient themselves.

Now, Dr. Goforth and her fellow scientists calibrated multiple different magnetic signatures and fed baby turtles when they were given a specific magnetic signature. After for a while, the babies danced when this specific magnetic signature was on even though there was no food present. They did not dance to other magnetic signatures. This meant they had an ability to associate the specific magnetic signature to food.

The Scientific American article says, “the findings show that loggerhead sea turtles are capable of learning the magnetic signatures of particular locations. This helps them create a magnetic map akin to a GPS, she says.”

Behold, this is the little dance a.k.a. a new scientific discovery. (Source: New Scientist)