Study: Imaging screen finds no magnetite magnetoreceptors in the mole-rat eye

A study in iScience, published 17 October 2026, screened the eyes of Ansell's mole-rats for single-domain magnetite, the iron crystal one leading hypothesis says animals use to sense Earth's magnetic field, and found none in the cornea or retina where earlier work had placed it. Iron staining, synchrotron X-ray fluorescence, magnetic resonance susceptibility mapping and quantum-diamond microscopy all came back negative, and most of the iron the team did find carried titanium or chromium, marking it as contamination.

"Such experiments revealed that the magnetic sense of F. anselli functions in total darkness, is sensitive to the polarity of the magnetic field, and is affected by a short magnetic pulse but not by weak oscillating radiofrequency fields."

— Moritz et al.

"We conclude that mole-rat magnetoreceptors are either located in tissues other than the cornea and retina or are based on a mechanism without ferrimagnetic particles, highlighting the need for further research and a re-evaluation of current models of magnetoreception in mammals."

— Moritz et al.

"To act as a torque transducer in the weak magnetic field of the Earth (∼25–65 μT), magnetite has to be present in the form of sd particles,"

— Moritz et al., iScience (2026), Introduction

📄 Underlying Research

Multimodal imaging reveals no evidence for magnetite-based magnetoreceptors in the mole-rat eye

Moritz L, Nath K, Walsh EP, Sternberg A, Becher E, Lange A, Falkenberg G, Brückner D, Diwoky C, Bredies K, Brammerloh M, Howard D, Paterson DJ, Medjoubi K, Irsen S, Wolf-Kümmeth S, Zhang L, Daniel MMM, Simpson DA, Begall S, Malkemper EP (2026) iScience Journal Level 1ⓘ

🔗 DOI 📚 PubMed 📰 Full Article

Study: Imaging screen finds no magnetite magnetoreceptors in the mole-rat eye

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📄 Underlying Research

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