Can Animals Predict Earthquakes? Some Scientists Think So

Amaze Lab

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour fitted animals with motion sensors to investigate whether they could be an early warning system for earthquakes.

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00:00animals may have a sixth sense and no, they don't see dead people, but it may help them sense

00:10when earthquakes will strike. An international research team placed sensors on six cows, five

00:15sheep and two dogs on a farm in Italy in an earthquake-prone area. They studied their

00:20movement over several months and found they were unusually restless up to 20 hours before

00:26earthquakes. Animals closer to the quakes at the center started behaving unusually earlier

00:31than those that weren't. Though the team says it's still unclear how their sixth sense works,

00:36they have a few ideas. Researchers think they may be able to sense earthquakes by picking up the air's

00:42ionization caused by large rock pressures in earthquake zones with their fur. Or it's possible

00:48animals can smell gases released from quartz crystals before an earthquake. Today, predicting when and

00:54where earthquakes will happen is still a challenge. Researchers say studying a big number of

00:58animals in different regions around the world could provide further clues. A study was published

01:03in the Ethology International Journal of Behavioral Biology.

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