Canine Research Directional preferences of dogs’ changes in the presence of a bar magnet: Educational experiments in Israel Reuven Yosef a, b , Michal Raz b , Niv Ben-Baruch b , Liel Shmueli b , Jakub Z. Kosicki c , Martyna Fratczak d , Piotr Tryjanowski d, * a Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Eilat Campus, Eilat, Israel b Rabin High School, Eilat, Israel c Department of Avian Biology & Ecology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna n, Poland d Institute of Zoology, Pozna n University of Life Sciences, Pozna n, Poland article info Article history: Received 6 May 2019 Received in revised form 28 June 2019 Accepted 1 October 2019 Available online 8 October 2019 Keywords: magnetoreception magnetic field magnetic alignment dog education abstract A lot of animals detect and then align their body axis with respect to the Earth’s magnetic field lines (MF). This behavior was also presented for territory marking dogs. We collected data on directional preferences of dogs under different MF conditions and analyzed the data using circular statistics. Dogs excreted with the body aligned along the NortheSouth axis, but when exposed to small bar magnets, significantly changed their directional positions. The study suggests that dogs are able to recognize MF. Additional value of this research is that the data were collected by local high school students, which required collaboration with teachers and their parents. We think that this idea has great potential and can be developed at a global scale and to become a citizen-science project involving other high school pupils and their families. Ó 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction The Earth can be perceived as a huge magnet, with magnetic field lines leaving the surface at the southern magnetic poles, running around the globe and re-entering the surface at the northern magnetic pole. Then perception of the magnetic field was proved for representatives of mollusks and arthropods, as well as for members of all major groups of vertebrates, including humans (Wiltschko and Wiltschko, 2005; Vacha, 2015; Wang et al., 2019). Magnetic inclination, which is the angle between local magnetic vector and the horizontal, changes continuously and presents a moderately regular gradient with the intensity changing gradually from the poles to the equator. The geomagnetic field thus provides universal navigational information, used by a wide range of species to choose proper direction (magnetic vector used as a compass) or to orientate its position (intensity and/or inclination of MF used as the navigational map) (Wiltschko and Wiltschko, 2005). The simplest directional response to the geomagnetic field is magnetic alignment (MA), understood as spontaneous orientation of the body during routine behavior on the spot (e.g., resting, lurking, hunting, feeding, defecating, digging) with respect to magnetic fields and lines. In contrast to widely studied use of the geomagnetic field as a source of navigational orientation, MA is not directed toward a specific point, as the preference of the direction is not changed after a displacement in space (Begall et al., 2013, 2014). MA has been reported in numerous species of mammals, such as in domestic cattle (Bos taurus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), warthog (Phacochoerus africanus), and red fox (Vulpes vulpes; Begall et al., 2013;  Cervený et al., 2017). Existence of magnetoreception in dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) was suspected because of the homing abilities of many individuals of this species (Harry, 1922). Hart et al. (2013) reported that dogs preferred to excrete with the body aligned along the N-S axis under calm MF conditions. However, this directional behavior disappeared under unstable MF. In another report, domestic dogs demonstrated a spontaneous directional preference toward a dish with food placed to the north (Adámková et al., 2017). Martini et al. (2018) showed * Address for reprint requests and correspondence: Piotr Tryjanowski, Pozna n University of Life Sciences, Institute of Zoology, Wojska Polskiego 71c, 60-625 Poznan, Poland. Tel: þ48 61 848 76 55; Fax: þ48 61 848 76 49. E-mail address: piotr.tryjanowski@gmail.com (P. Tryjanowski). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Veterinary Behavior journal homepage: www.journalvetbehavior.com https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2019.10.003 1558-7878/Ó 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 35 (2020) 34e37