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Animal behaviour

The lobster navigators

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When experimentally displaced in geomagnetic space, spiny lobsters act as if to make their way home. This is a fascinating case of navigation by an invertebrate using a magnetic map sense.

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Figure 1: Position determination and Earth's magnetic field.
Figure 2: Magnetic inclination and total field intensity in the distribution range of the spiny lobster, Panulirus argus.

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  1. Department of Animal Ecology, Ecology Building, Lund University, Lund, SE-22362, Sweden

    Thomas Alerstam

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  1. Thomas Alerstam
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Correspondence to Thomas Alerstam.

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Alerstam, T. The lobster navigators. Nature 421, 27–28 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/421027a

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