Dung Beetles Navigate By The Stars
Straight Rolling Wikimedia Commons Views of the Milky Way provide more than just ambiance for the fecal-foraging insect. Celestial navigation has guided man around the world for several thousand years. A new study suggests it could also be guiding dung beetles. Marie Dacke, a zoologist at Sweden's Lund University, studies the way animals navigate. In a study online this week in Current Biology, she and a team of researchers looked into the surprisingly sophisticated navigational habits of the dung beetle, finding that they too have their eyes on the skies. Here's how it works: Dung beetles like to maintain straight lines as they run. As they're going about their beetle business, when a pile of droppings catches their eye, they roll it into a ball and, walking backward, push it somewhere safe to eat. A straight course ensures they don't return to the fierce competition back at the dung pile....