Crossing multiple time zones often causes jet lag, a feeling when the body insists it’s the middle of the night while the clock says it’s midday. Now it turns out that this nuisance doesn’t just affect humans.
A new scientific study of Manx shearwaters, seabirds that can fly hundreds of kilometers across the North Atlantic every day, shows that they experience jet lag during their excursions. And because these birds orientate themselves by the sun, this jet lag leaves measurable traces – it distorts their compass.
Clockwork compass
Patrick Lewin is a behavioral and sensory ecologist at the University of Oxford and lead author of the study. “Manx shearwaters are medium-sized birds, about the size of a pigeon,” Lewin said. “They are white below and black above, but they have very long wings and are closely related to albatrosses.” Manx shearwaters nest in burrows on coastal islands around the North Atlantic. Most breed in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with around half of their population living in Wales.
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