How do they navigate?

[karlh]

Ever since I have kept hamsters, I have always know where they would be in their balls. They all have favourite spot or two. They may rest at one for a while and then move to another. Sometimes, I find all 4 of them in line in one place, between my bed and the bedside table.
They know my home's layout. It does not matter where I put the ball on the floor, they seem to know where they are. Just scoot away to one their places. I understand that they know the magnetic north and navigate with that in mind.
Have you had any interesting experiences relating to this?

[Shannonmcn]

Scent is much more important than eyesight but I notice they sometimes would gravitate to corners or dimly lit places, probably because it feels safer. Also any door, I'm guessing they can smell fresh air as well. Butts would always be either by the front door or in the kitchen corner beside the sink.

Where did you hear about the magnetic north thing? I've never heard that before.

[karlh]

Interesting... If I put any of them on the floor in my kitchen, without hesitation they scoot down in straight line, stop and turn right and scoot in the middle through the door. go for few inches, turn sharp left, again in the middle of the hall and scoot at scoot at speed right to the end of the house. Stopping only couple inches from it. Turn sharp right or left and voila.... one their resting places... Do not return the same way. Omit the turn right and left. Just scoot in straight line the the coffee table...
Swiss scientists have done some experiments. Apparently, in the wild, the places where they give birth, always faces NORTH. By remembering magnetic north, and the scent, they can navigate easier....
Will try and find the website..

[Shannonmcn]

You mean the burrow entrance faces North? Or the burrow where they give birth is more North than the rest of their home? That sounds interesting, my immediate thought is that it might have more to do with sun and shade and keeping babies either warmer or cooler.

With magnetic navigation pigeons (who are the ones famous for it) actually see magnetic waves, they have pretty amazing vision. Since hams are the opposite I wonder what sense they would use.

[kyrilliondaemon]

karlh they probably just remember the layout of the house and recognise their position in it by smell and possibly hearing

Hams do definetly notice things we don't, the strangest thing I've ever had was when I had a really nasty foot injury and let Scamp out in her ball. Every single time I went into a room looking for her she'd charge over and straight into my foot. Didn't matter what room it was, where in the room she was or what she was doing before I went into it, as soon as my injured foot went down on the floor in the room or by the doorway... Scamp was racing over to it. She never went after my uninjured foot, just the injured one. If I was sat in the room with her she'd spend most of her time pushing her ball into and around my injured foot. She definetly knew there was something wrong with that foot. (She was also calmer with me when being handled while my foot was really bad, she definetly, definetly sensed more than I'd have expected somehow)

[karlh]

You may Google 'hamster and magnetic north' to get articles on this topic. Some are quite scientific, but interesting nevertheless....

[Shannonmcn]

I can't read the first result there karlh since I don't have paper access where I am atm but once I get home I'll take a look. The Google book result that comes up which is a bit more recent confirms what kyrillion thought tho, the "Siberian" hamsters were probably reacting to "learned visual cues" rather than magnetism once they retested in a different room. It seems to be true for blind mole rats though which is very interesting and makes a lot of sense for completely blind animals who are permanently subterranean.

[kyrilliondaemon]

I googled. I didn't find anywhere to say that in the wild they always give birth in a place facing north, I only found one study into Phodopus sungorus navigation in relation to magnetic north and it didn't find any positive results. The other study I found was about Phodopus sungorus nest building instead of navigation. Both studies focusing on the one species (and I do wonder if they used purebred hams or hybrids) means we can only apply the results to that species too as opposed to applying them to all pet hamster species.

The older of the two I found was this one and while it looked at if Phodopus sungorus could navigate to the magnetic north it didn't find any evidence for it.

The second study I found didn't look at navigation and looked at nest building instead. That one can be found here.
It seems to show evidence for Phodopus sungorus being able to tell where magnetic north is but as it doesn't focus at all on navigation I don't think we can take the results from that and use them to argue either way if Phodopus sungorus use magnetic north when navigating.
Unless I've misread something Shannons book result also refers to nest building as opposed to navigation.

If there're other studies I'd love to read them, but without more info avaliable I don't think we can assume either way whether hamsters use magnetic north when navigating. If they do use it when navigating it may just be as a way to help them get back home safely as opposed to deciding where to go. Its definetly an area that'd be fascinating to see more research into though

[karlh]

) That's all I could find. Indeed it would be very interesting to see some more research done on this topic, rather than testing cosmetics on them -..
I just find it baffling that they seem to know where they are when I put them down on the floor in their balls, they seem to know exactly where they are. If put down in the kitchen, they just run forward,turn right, turn left and right down the hall into the bedroom, some 10 metres and voila there they are, at one of their favourite spots. Without bumping into anything, seems to be in the middle of the floor, all covered with tiles. But they do not return the same way. They come back in a straight line, missing the turn into the kitchen and end up at the coffee table in the lounge. Why do they not turn right or left when put down, baffles me.