97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS"

Please forgive me for not knowing enough about the construction of an- tennae, but I thought Tupandactylus was an obvious and probably older example.

See picture at

You are perfectly validated if you feel like correcting me on this in- terpretation of the evidence, and when you do, please feel free to sug- gest a book on antennae construction, both electromechanical, and bio- logical.

Best wishes, and happy bioelectromagnetism!

We've known about animals sensing the earth's magnetic field and using it for navigation for many years now. but the one thing we do know for sure is that this hasn't got anything to do with our global position system, which relies on remarkably precises clocks in orbit around the earth which transmit very precise time signals at microwave frequencies.

You've got to be able to receive signals from at least four satellites at the same time to be able to work out where you (and you can do it pretty precisely).

The earth's magnetic field drifts around quite a bit, and reverses from time to time, more of less randomly - there have been at least 183 reversals over the last 83 million years (which averages out to one every 450,000 years, but the most recent one was 780.000 years ago).

Sensing the earth's magnetic field is a useful trick, but it's a lot less than a navigation system. Ships have had compasses for quite while now, but nobody call them a "global positioning system".

A biosensor allowing a primitive creature to align itself with the local geomagnetic field is not GPS. The best we can say is that the migration minimized the work required to go from point A to point B.

Quote from article: Known as magnetofossils, the microscopic structures come in shapes resembling spearheads, spindles, bullets, and needles. Each is no larger than a bacterial cell. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Scientists believe they have a biological origin, although exactly what organism created them and what purpose they served has long remained uncertain. end quote

A simple very small peace of magnetic iron can work just as well as compass needle, Pressure sensors against it (nerve cells) when moving will show what direction is 'North' "Antenna' is not limited to 1/4 wavelength radio etc pieces of wire or things on an insect head.

Birds have similar magnetic sensors 

Get and the RSGB radio handbook. And use google

A bit of magnetite in an appropriate place in a fossil /may/ be indicative of a magnetically sensitive organ, true. The remainder is pure conjecture. "Built-in GPS" and "Surprising precision", sheesh, talk about hyperbole.

Jeroen Belleman

Well, you gave us an incomplete sentence, "...to be able to work out where you..." so nobody can be sure what you're talking about.

Four satellites needed for navigation, three satellites for position.

There are marked performance benefits to the user carrying a clock synchronized with the satellites. Foremost is that only three satellites are needed to compute a position solution.

Although four satellites are required for normal operation, fewer apply in special cases. If one variable is already known, a receiver can determine its position using only three satellites. For example, a ship on the open ocean usually has a known elevation close to 0 m, and the elevation of an aircraft may be known.