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The Library Looks At Mysteries: Circling

logo The Library Looks At Mysteries series

There are so many unusual, interesting, and new things you can find – if you just look around a little bit. And libraries are all about mysteries! So, we are looking at a real-life mystery each week and bringing some library resources to help add some clarity and some thought.

Join us! Share with your library patrons! Start with our story, and build it for your own library! Or, just enjoy some small mysteries in your life.

This week we move into the ocean to find a small mystery.

Researchers who study all kinds of larger marine life – sharks, turtles, seals, penguins – have been upgrading their equipment, and it’s been showing them some unusual behavior.

All of these animals are swimming in circles.

Ponder for a moment. Fundamental needs every living thing has includes finding food and water, reproducing, and getting sleep. For most of these needs to be fulfilled, it would make sense to move in a nice straight line: here to there. Don’t waste calories zooming around. Identify your need, find a place to get that met, go there, make it happen. Nap.

So, circles?

It’s inefficient on its face. It doesn’t seem to serve a purpose that meets a fundamental goal.

Why are all these different animals, in different places, all choosing to swim in circles?

Nobody knows. It’s a mystery.

You can read this article to get more background on this story, and here are a few of the proposed solutions:

“One possibility is that the animals circle in order to forage for food. Four tiger sharks, for example, circled 272 times in their known feeding grounds off Hawaii, the study authors wrote. However, some of the circling behavior seems clearly not related to eating. One male tiger shark circled before approaching a female, according to Gizmodo. However, seals, penguins and Cuvier’s beaked whales all circled near the surface of the water, when normally they feed farther down, according to New Scientist. In addition, fur seals normally circled during the day, while they typically feed at night, Cell Press noted.

It is also possible that some animals circle to help with navigation.

“What surprised me most was that homing turtles undertake circling behavior at seemingly navigationally important locations, such as just before the final approach to their goal,” Narazaki told Cell Press.

It is possible that the circling helps turtles detect magnetic fields, a technique that submarines also use when making geomagnetic observations. Previous research has suggested that turtles are capable of sensing magnetic fields, according to New Scientist.”

Here is another article talking about this small mystery, to help add more information!

I am not a scientist, or an oceanographer, and possess no special knowledge and skills in this area. (I watch a lot of Kitten Academy, which qualifies me to say “oh, that’s so cute!” a lot. Probably not applicable here…) So I’ll throw out the entire un-scientific theory: maybe they are doing it because it’s fun to swim in circles!

Other animals do things because it’s fun, not for any specific reason related to their fundamental needs. Maybe these big marine animals just like to have a little self-care and joy in their day, and they swim in circles to have a good time?

*shrug* Nobody really knows, but it will be interesting to watch this over the next few years, to see if people who know what they are doing can figure it out.

I love these little reminders that there is SO MUCH fundamental information that we still don’t know! I’m a strong believer in the idea that none of us even knows how much we don’t know – there are so many interesting things going on that just zip past our information bubbles. So, stay with us each week while we pause to look at a small mystery, and take a small amount of joy in uncovering something else new and interesting!

If you are inspired to go read about marine life, or to set up a display or program in your library, we have a few resources here:

TURTLE PARADISE 4K Undersea Ambient Nature Relaxation Film + Jason Stephenson Meditation Music 🐢🥰