Dancing dung beetles navigate with ‘sky snapshot’

Dung beetles record a mental image of the positions of the Sun, the Moon and the stars and use the snapshot to navigate, according to researchers.

Scientists in Sweden found that the beetles capture the picture of the sky while dancing on a ball of manure, according to BBC.

As they roll away with their malodorous prize, the beetles compare the stored image with their current location.

The beetles’ navigational skills could aid the development of driverless vehicles, the researchers suggest.

Previous studies have shown that dung beetles have an amazing ability to navigate by the light of the Milky Way.

This new research builds on that work and shows how the store and use the images of the sky inside their brains.

There are many thousands of species of dung beetles all over the world, which thrive on steaming piles of animal waste.

Some of these creatures have evolved ways of grabbing and shaping dung into a ball and rapidly rolling it away from the scrum of competitors.

These beetles then bury the manure and use the balls as a food source and a nursery for their young.

The researchers carried out their experiments in South Africa at a facility with an artificial sky where the team could control the amount of light and the location of celestial bodies.

They found that the beetles see many things that humans can’t – including the spectral gradient of the sky and polarised light.

H.Z