Apart from being intelligent, dolphins own a strange ability to sense whether a particular object is magnetized or not, a new study by French researchers suggested.

A group of researchers, led by Dorothee Kremers, at Ethos division of the Universite de Rennes in France claimed to have collected behavioral evidence showing that dolphins are magneto-receptive. In other words, these marine creatures navigate the vast oceans using Earth's magnetic field as a guide.

The researchers reached the conclusion after placing these cetaceans in a dolphinarium, where the intelligent creatures were found gravitating towards magnetized objects as opposed to objects that were not magnetized.

Sharing the findings of the study, the researchers said, "Dolphins approached the device with shorter latency when it contained a strongly magnetized neodymium block compared to a control demagnetized block that was identical in form and density…"

Kremers said the study was enough to prove that creatures like dolphins and whales use magnetic signals emanating from the Earth as a guide to their destinations during migration.

The lead researcher added that their ability to distinguish magnetic objects was an indicator of magnetoreception. However, the researchers have not yet figured out how dolphins' magnetic sense exactly works.

The study published in the most recent edition of journal Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature.