Forget Batman, robins are the superheroes

Thursday October 29,2009
By John Ingham

THE friendly, unassuming robin has a secret identity – as a super-hero.

TV’s Batman may have got all the kudos for being more intelligent than mere mortals, but it seems robins have incredible super-powers.

Scientists believe our favourite little bird has an extraordinary brain.

At night this brain helps it “see” the Earth’s magnetic field.

The information, relayed to a specialised light-processing region in the skull called “cluster N”, helps robins navigate on migration flights using its internal magnetic compass.

Experts cannot agree on what form it takes. One idea is that tiny magnets in the beak wired to the nervous system detect lines of magnetic force.

Another is that the robin “sees” magnetic fields with its eyes using a complex light-sensitive mechanism.

German scientists studied 36 European robins and found birds with damage to “cluster N” were unable to orientate themselves using the Earth’s magnetic field.

If damage occurred to another nerve channel necessary for a beak sensory system, it had had no effect. The researchers, led by Dr Henrik Mouritsen from the University of Oldenburg, published their findings in Nature.

He said: “The present study...specifically suggest that cluster N of European robins is an essential part of a circuit-processing, light-dependent magnetic compass information for night-time orientation.

“The exact role of cluster N within this circuit has not been determined but the present results raise the distinct possibility that this part of the visual system enables birds to ‘see’ magnetic compass information.”

Other types of magnetic sensor may exist in birds, too. There was strong evidence pigeons used these upper-beak “magnetosensors”.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/136837/Forget-Batman-robins-are-the-superheroes