Loggerhead sea turtles ( Caretta caretta) are pretty loyal marine reptiles. Even with their roughly 8,000-mile-long migrations across oceans, they consistently return to the same feeding and nesting sites. Sea turtles can travel these distances by remembering the magnetic signatures of an area and storing that knowledge in a mental map.

Loggerhead turtles “dance” when exposed to food-associated magnetic fields, and their magnetic map may help them return to specific areas after long migrations.

Sea turtles have long mystified researchers by returning to beaches where they were hatched, magnetic signals may be the key, new research finds.

Discover how sea turtles navigate the ocean using their internal GPS and learn about their magnetic field perception.

Sea turtles navigate using Earth's magnetic field like a GPS. Scientists found they learn and remember magnetic locations.

Loggerhead sea turtles do an excited "turtle dance" when anticipating food. It's adorable, of course, but it has also allowed scientists to understand better how the turtles navigate. Scientists have theorized that sea turtles memorize coordinates to navigate using a magnetic "map.