TY - JOUR
T1 - Magnetic alignment in free-ranging Indian Leopard (Panthera pardus fusca)
AU - Yosef, Reuven
AU - Kumbhojkar, Swapnil
AU - Gurjar, Bablu
AU - Kosicki, Jakub Z.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Yosef et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2022/7/1
Y1 - 2022/7/1
N2 - The earth’s geomagnetic field (GMF) is known to influence the behaviour of a wide range of species, but remains one of the most enigmatic of animal senses. Animals are known to utilize the GMF for a wide range of survival capabilities such as navigation and orienteering, migration, territoriality, homing, etc. Despite a lot of study in this regard on vertebrates, little is known about the effects of GMF on felids. Hence, we analyzed the body alignment of the Indian Leopard during defecation, and walking along the trails in the Jhalana Reserve Forest in India. Using circular statistics, we found that the leopards aligned their bodies on the north-south axis during defecation (mean azimuth -176.4∘), while no such preference was found when walking (mean azimuth 52.9∘). Thus we prove that leopards are sensitive to the GMF during basic physiological activities and in this context show similar behaviour to other vertebrates studied to date.
AB - The earth’s geomagnetic field (GMF) is known to influence the behaviour of a wide range of species, but remains one of the most enigmatic of animal senses. Animals are known to utilize the GMF for a wide range of survival capabilities such as navigation and orienteering, migration, territoriality, homing, etc. Despite a lot of study in this regard on vertebrates, little is known about the effects of GMF on felids. Hence, we analyzed the body alignment of the Indian Leopard during defecation, and walking along the trails in the Jhalana Reserve Forest in India. Using circular statistics, we found that the leopards aligned their bodies on the north-south axis during defecation (mean azimuth -176.4∘), while no such preference was found when walking (mean azimuth 52.9∘). Thus we prove that leopards are sensitive to the GMF during basic physiological activities and in this context show similar behaviour to other vertebrates studied to date.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133685397&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0266129
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0266129
M3 - Article
C2 - 35802713
AN - SCOPUS:85133685397
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 17
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 7 July
M1 - e0266129
ER -
