Figure 1 | Scientific Reports

Figure 1

From: Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches

Figure 1

Schematic of experimental setup (not to scale). Cockroaches were placed in Petri dishes and levelled inside the Merritt coil used to rotate the geomagnetic field by \(60^\circ \pm 5^\circ \) clockwise (preserving inclination angle, i.e. only horizontal component of the geomagnetic field is modified). The coil alternates between being switched on and off every 5 min, from 6 am to 6 pm. A camera records cockroach motion from the top of a covered box prepared to minimise visual cues from surrounding (bottom left inset). Tracking software recognises the insect (top left inset showing ellipse fitted to the cockroach) and stores its location and angle in the horizontal plane. Our figure of merit is the activity time defined as the time a cockroach spends translating or rotating.

Back to article page