Authors
Patrick Lewin, Joe Wynn, Joe Morford, Oliver Padget, Lewis Lancaster-Reeves, Katrina Siddiqi-Davies, Hector Bailey, Sarah Bond, Madeline Davis, Ben Dean, Annette L Fayet, Robin Freeman, Natasha Gillies, Stephanie M Harris, Paris Jaggers, Holly Kirk, Lou Maurice, Elizabeth Morgan, Craig Nisbet, Ellie Owen, Joe Parker, Akiko Shoji, Martyna Syposz, Tim Guilford
Published in
Science (New York, N.Y.). Volume 394. Issue 6823. Pages 520-524. Oct 29, 2026. Epub Oct 29, 2026.
Abstract
Many animals use the Sun compass to guide their movement, sometimes over thousands of kilometers. Consistent use of the Sun compass relies on the endogenous clock to track the Sun's arc, yet animals traveling east-west experience time shifts, potentially causing mismatches between their internal clock and local time. Using GPS, we reveal that Manx shearwaters (Puffinus puffinus) experience such shifts during homing flights, generating predictable errors in Sun compass orientation. Use of the Sun compass persists even when shearwaters have access to compass-independent cues during coast following. Our findings provide a new avenue for chronobiology research in the wild, suggesting that rapid longitudinal movements may affect other processes governed by the endogenous clock and that conserved chronobiological mechanisms impose substantial constraints on navigation.
PMID:
42956126
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 30 Oct 2026.
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