{"id":484238,"date":"2026-06-09T17:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/484238\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T17:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:13:15","slug":"do-pigeons-navigate-with-their-livers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/484238\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Pigeons Navigate with Their Livers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nAnimal migration and navigation remain a great mystery, despite decades of scientists trying to figure out how animals from monarch butterflies to arctic terns to green sea turtles to blue whales successfully navigate hundreds of miles from breeding grounds to feeding grounds\u2014often without ever having been there. Well, scientists think they may have figured out<\/a> part of what helps one bird, the pigeon, navigate: its liver.<\/p>\n

Pigeons are renowned for their navigational abilities. A well-trained homing pigeon can successfully navigate hundreds of miles, even if it was released somewhere it\u2019s never been before (this is why they were used during both World Wars to deliver messages). But how do they do it? Scientists believe it has something to do with the position of the sun and the earth\u2019s magnetic field, but the details have remained elusive.<\/p>\n

A new study looking for magnetic signals in pigeons found a \u201cstrong signal\u201d in the birds\u2019 livers:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Specialized immune cells in the pigeon\u2019s liver break down red blood cells and store iron. When scientists temporarily stripped pigeons of those immune cells and let them fly, the birds \u201cjust couldn\u2019t find their way.\u201d\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. That suggested the iron-rich liver cells might play a role in their sense of direction.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The birds\u2019 magnetic compasses only got scrambled on overcast days. That\u2019s because they also use the sun as a navigational guide.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The immune cells are located near nerve fibers in the liver. That might be how they transmit their \u201cmagnetic sense\u201d to the brain \u201cand help the pigeons to navigate.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The scientists think this could be true of other species and that \u201cthe birds could use different techniques to sense magnetic fields depending on the task, be it traveling long distances or finding a specific destination.\u201d In other words, solving the puzzle of animal navigation continues to be very complicated! I doubt man will ever work out how it all happens.<\/p>\n

Really, it\u2019s just another example of the complexity of God\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n

Really, it\u2019s just another example of the complexity of God<\/a>\u2019s creation<\/a>. Pigeons may seem like commonplace birds, but they have extraordinary abilities we can\u2019t fully understand even after decades and decades of dedicated research.<\/p>\n

Yet with all this complexity, the majority of scientists still continue to give the random, chance process of evolution<\/a> the credit for designing it all. Even something like pigeon livers should cause these scientists to be in awe of God\u2019s creativity and praise him for what he\u2019s made.<\/p>\n

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s obvious from creation that God is the Creator of it all!<\/p>\n

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
\n
Ken <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Animal migration and navigation remain a great mystery, despite decades of scientists trying to figure out how animals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":["post-484238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}