Elasmobranch fishes (sharks, skates, and rays) are hypothesized to use environmental cues, such as the geomagnetic field (GMF), to navigate across the ocean. However, testing the sensory and navigation abilities of large highly migratory fishes in the field is challenging. This laboratory study tested whether the yellow stingray, Urobatis jamaicensis, could detect and distinguish between the GMF cues used by other magnetically sensitive species to actively determine their location. Stingrays were divided into two cohorts for initial behavioral conditioning: one was trained to associate a change in GMF intensity with an aversive stimulus, whereas the other was trained using a change in GMF inclination angle. Individuals from each cohort remained naive to the GMF conditioning stimulus used to condition the other cohort. The combined group learned the initial association within a mean (± SE) of 184.0 ± 34.8 trials. Next, stingrays from each cohort were randomly exposed to their original GMF conditioning stimulus and the novel GMF stimulus. The original magnetic stimulus continued to be reinforced, whereas the novel stimulus was not. The group demonstrated a significantly different response to the original (reinforced) and novel (non-reinforced) stimuli, which indicates that stingrays could distinguish between the intensity and inclination angle of a magnetic field. This experiment is the first to show that a batoid (skate or ray) can detect and distinguish between changes in GMF intensity and inclination angle, and supports the idea that elasmobranchs might use GMF cues to form a magnetically based cognitive map and derive a sense of location.

中文翻译：

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黄色黄貂鱼（Urobatis jamaicensis）可以区分双坐标磁图所需的地磁线索

假设 Elasmobranch 鱼类（鲨鱼、鳐鱼和鳐鱼）利用环境线索（例如地磁场 (GMF)）在海洋中航行。然而，在野外测试大型高度洄游鱼类的感官和导航能力具有挑战性。这项实验室研究测试了黄色黄貂鱼 Urobatis jamaicensis 是否可以检测和区分其他磁敏感物种用来主动确定其位置的 GMF 线索。黄貂鱼被分成两组进行初始行为调节：一组被训练将 GMF 强度的变化与厌恶刺激联系起来，而另一组则被训练使用 GMF 倾角的变化。来自每个队列的个体对用于调节另一个队列的 GMF 调节刺激仍然不了解。组合组在 184.0 ± 34.8 次试验的平均值 (± SE) 内学习了初始关联。接下来，来自每个队列的黄貂鱼随机暴露于它们最初的 GMF 条件刺激和新的 GMF 刺激。原始的磁刺激继续得到加强，而新的刺激则没有。该小组展示了对原始（增强）和新（非增强）刺激的显着不同反应，这表明黄貂鱼可以区分磁场的强度和倾角。该实验首次表明 batoid（溜冰鞋或射线）可以检测和区分 GMF 强度和倾斜角的变化，并支持弹性鳃类动物可能使用 GMF 线索来形成基于磁力的认知图并得出一种感觉的想法地点。