Ever wonder why a group of cows align themselves with one another?

[astrobiologist]

Okay gang,

I've found the listing for the original article which was published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, section Ecology.

The only problem is that the article costs 10 bucks to read. Once I get in contact with Drs. Burda or Begall, I will see if it's worth my ten bucks or if I should wait for the few months or so it would take for the article to come off of reserve and become public domain. I'm sure it's an impressively written article to pick-up so much talk (it's also a pretty cool topic ), but $10 is a lot of cash for me right now.

Here's the info on the article if anyone is interested...

Sabine Begall, Jaroslav Červený, Julia Neef, Oldřich Vojtčch, and Hynek Burda
Magnetic alignment in grazing and resting cattle and deer
PNAS published ahead of print August 25, 2008, doi:10.1073/pnas.0803650105

 

[astrobiologist]

btw, Here's the abastract for that article. It seems, according to this, that they are just reporting the phenomena, but have no suggestions as to a mechanism...

-from Magnetic alignment in grazing and resting cattle and deer

We demonstrate by means of simple, noninvasive methods (analysis of satellite images, field observations, and measuring “deer beds” in snow) that domestic cattle (n = 8,510 in 308 pastures) across the globe, and grazing and resting red and roe deer (n = 2,974 at 241 localities), align their body axes in roughly a north–south direction. Direct observations of roe deer revealed that animals orient their heads northward when grazing or resting. Amazingly, this ubiquitous phenomenon does not seem to have been noticed by herdsmen, ranchers, or hunters. Because wind and light conditions could be excluded as a common denominator determining the body axis orientation, magnetic alignment is the most parsimonious explanation. To test the hypothesis that cattle orient their body axes along the field lines of the Earth's magnetic field, we analyzed the body orientation of cattle from localities with high magnetic declination. Here, magnetic north was a better predictor than geographic north. This study reveals the magnetic alignment in large mammals based on statistically sufficient sample sizes. Our findings open horizons for the study of magnetoreception in general and are of potential significance for applied ethology (husbandry, animal welfare). They challenge neuroscientists and biophysics to explain the proximate mechanisms.

 

[Ninjamom]

....Given that it's not "magnetoreception", what other plausible ideas are there for the herds to face North?

(Ninjamom raises one hand and begins shouting wildly...) Oo! Oo! Pick me!! I Know!!!!

Cows allign facing north because millions of years of evolution have taught them that if they face any other direction, the sun will get in their eyes. Watch: I'll bet a dime-to-a-dollar that cows in the Southern Hemisphere face SOUTH!

 

[Sukerkin]

. Stranger things have turned out to be true .