Do Animals Sense Earthquakes Before They Happen? Scientists Explore the Possibility

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.

Transcript

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 than

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

00:37ideas. Researchers think they may be able to sense earthquakes by picking up the air's ionization

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

00:49gases released from quartz crystals before an earthquake. Today, predicting when and where earthquakes

00:54will happen is still a challenge. Her researchers say studying a big number of animals in different

00:59regions around the world could provide further clues. A study was published in the Ethology,

01:04International Journal of Behavioral Biology.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended