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Wolfgang Wiltschko

Wolfgang Wiltschko, wearing glasses and a dark sweater over a striped shirt, stands against a neutral background, showcasing his professional demeanor.

German zoologist who, with his wife Roswitha, ran the Frankfurt lab that established almost everything early science knew about bird magnetoreception. Their 1972 paper in Science showed that European robins use an inclination compass rather than a polarity one, a finding that overturned assumptions borrowed from human compass design and set the agenda for the field for the next fifty years.

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