Researchers have isolated what are essentially tiny compass needles in the noses of rainbow trout that may explain these and many other animals' incredible ability to navigate across vast distances.
When cells scraped from the trout's nasal passages were placed in a rotating magnetic field, a clump of tiny iron-rich crystals inside the cells called magnetite — the same mineral used in compass needles — spun in synchrony with the field, turning the cells around with them.
The strength of the crystals' magnetic response, and their firm attachment to the surrounding cell membranes, lent strong support for what scientists have long suspected: That these crystals lean back and forth like a sail in response to Earth's weak magnetic field, and that the cells they are embedded in somehow convey their swaying movements to the brain. This is believed to confer trout and other migratory animals with a "magnetic sense" by which to judge direction.
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