Red deer and cows orient themselves on a North-South axis, showing a previously undocumented feel for points of the compass. German scientists discovered the strange alignment by analyzing Google Earth images of 308 pastures. Do cows have a sixth sense? Herd animals seem to arrange themselves according to a certain logic. On cold sunny days, many cows stand so that the warming sun rays will hit them directly. On cold, windy days, they orient themselves parallel to the wind exposing a smaller portion of their body to it. So far so good. But where do cows choose to stand on warm days without significant wind? A team of German and Czech scientists from the University of Duisberg-Essen believe they have discovered a pattern in the animals' natural positioning: grazing and resting animals arrange their bodies along a north-south axis. Researchers published this first evidence of bovine sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic fields Monday in scientific journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA).
Do cows have a sixth sense? Herd animals seem to arrange themselves according to a certain logic. On cold sunny days, many cows stand so that the warming sun rays will hit them directly. On cold, windy days, they orient themselves parallel to the wind exposing a smaller portion of their body to it.
So far so good. But where do cows choose to stand on warm days without significant wind? A team of German and Czech scientists from the University of Duisberg-Essen believe they have discovered a pattern in the animals' natural positioning: grazing and resting animals arrange their bodies along a north-south axis. Researchers published this first evidence of bovine sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic fields Monday in scientific journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA).
Therefore, if you take European cattle to the southern hemisphere, their internal compasses might not work as well. New Zealand is the place to test this idea.
And - here's a thing - they move around.
Isn't it slightly suspect to use a small number of Google Earth images as data points, instead of testing the hypothesis with real animals?
I think I'll need to be more convinced that there's data to be explained first. You can't tell the weather or ambient temperature from Google Maps with any reliability, so it all sounds a little unlikely.
It's hard work for a cow to raise its head to the 40-50 degrees above the horizon needed to look straight into the sun, and even harder work to hold that position. (Assuming there's sun to be seen, which in the UK, there usually isn't.)
And now, I will leave the commas in peace and get on with some work.
oh yeh, and energy.... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I don't like staring into the sun, personally. Do cows?
Only when they wear sunglasses. "Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
Maybe German cows have a better sense of direction? (And style.)
