WASHINGTON: Wondering which way is north? You might want to look at grazing cows. European scientists who studied satellite images of cows and deer around the world have discovered that these animals tend to align themselves with Earth’s north-south magnetic fields while they graze or rest.

While birds, turtles and salmon are known to use magnetic guidance to migrate, cattle were not previously known to possess an inner compass. Farmers have found that cattle stand perpendicular to the sun to heat up their bodies on cold, sunny days, or stand parallel to the wind during winter days with particularly strong winds, the scientists noted.

But the farmers’ wisdom and scientific studies had not provided answers to the common alignment of cattle during days with optimal weather, the European scientists said.

“Amazingly, this ubiquitous phenomenon does not seem to have been noticed by herdsmen, ranchers, or hunters,” said the study, co-written by Sabine Begall of Germany’s University of Duisburg-Essen.

The scientists used Google Earth software to study the alignment of 8,510 cows in 308 pastures around the world and 2,974 red and roe deer in 241 locations in the Czech Republic.—AFP