The composed noun topotaxis is built from the Greek words topos, meaning place, and taxis, meaning order or responsive movement. The word topotaxis refers to the movement of an animal from place to place (migration) in response to geographical features the animal is able to sense. The term was coined by the marine biologist and sensory physiologist A. Peter Klimley, who wants to find out if sharks and rays can detect changes in local magnetic underwater topography and use these magnetic-field features as their guiding map—instead of the globally-caused, compass-oriented vector of Earth's magnetic field, as typically hypothesized [1,2].