Wait, maybe birds don't have compasses in their beaks after all

Wait, maybe birds don't have compasses in their beaks after all: New research published in Nature has shown that while there are indeed iron rich cells in a pigeon's beak, the previous research has entirely miscategorized their purpose. The researchers mapped the location of these cells in the beak, and found much greater variation in number and location than would work with being magnetic receptors.

Rather, these clusters are iron-rich macrophage cells, don't contain magnetite, and are most likely part of the pigeon's immune system, and used for iron homeostasis. It turns out these iron-laden cells are found throughout pigeons, and that means our interpretation of them as the primary method for these birds to sense magnetic fields is wrong.