Dogs defecate aligned with the magnetic field of the Earth - Reuters

MADRID, Jan. 3 (Portaltic / EP) –

What does knowing how a dog defecates? That remains to be seen, but dogs do belly aligned with the magnetic field of the Earth is the latest of these related curiosities “sixth sense” of the animals, which makes them predict earthquakes or “feel” to their owners return home.

A team of Czech and German researchers analyzed the way they did their dogs ‘needs’, in particular, they measured the direction of the axis of the body of 70 dogs, 37 different breeds, over 1,893 “big waters” and 5,582 urination .

What had motivated researchers is that several mammalian species spontaneously align their body axis with respect to the magnetic field of the Earth, in different behavioral contexts. The “magnetic alignment” present in animals has been studied for identify new functions that can be applied , besides navigation.

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and fun to imagine themselves with researchers measuring devices around dogs while they are relieved. However, monitoring and served researchers concluded that the dogs “prefer to excrete the body in alignment with the north-south axis , in calm conditions magnetic field.”

conclusions beyond being curious, would be even more interesting if the researchers have an answer to why. “It is still puzzling why dogs are well aligned, if they do consciously (because they perceive the magnetic field in a way that allows them to” see “,” hear “or” smell “) or if your perception is unconscious (they feel more comfortable or less comfortable in a certain direction), “scientists in the newspaper ask Frontiers in Zoology which have published their work.

In this sense, researchers are very clear and insist that there is something that makes dogs do their business in this peculiar way: “Our full data (not shown here) indicate that dogs not only prefer the north sur, but at the same time avoid east-west “.

Related links:

– Frontiers in zoology

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