Conditioning analysis of magnetoreception in honeybees

A central problem in the study of magnetic sensitivity in animals has been the lack of behavioral techniques sufficiently powerful for the systematic psychophysical work required for an understanding of magnetosensory capacity and of the transduction mechanism. In recent experiments, free-flying honeybees have been conditioned to discriminate the presence and absence of localized magnetic dipole anomalies superimposed on the uniform background field of the earth. The results obtained thus far suggest that movement is necessary for conditioned responding to magnetic field stimuli and support the hypothesis that magnetic field transduction is based on single-domain particles of magnetite found in the anterodorsal abdomen of honeybees.