About a month ago, scientists announced their discovery of the
first animal ever observed using the light of the Milky Way
galaxy as an aid to navigation. This same organism also uses the
Sun and Moon to guide it on its journey. The animal in question
is not a mammal or a bird, but a lowly dung beetle, an insect
which (as its name suggests) feeds on excrement, and spends much
of its life preparing balls of excrement to feed its young after
they have hatched. While scientists do not believe that their
eyes can detect individual stars, the beetles can perceive the
gradient of light that our home galaxy traces across the night
sky. As it rolls its ball of dung away from the source, the dung
beetle will stop and climb to the top of the ball, in order to
determine which way to go. This insures that the dung beetle
will continue to move away from the original excrement source,
rather than risk running into other dung beetles all clamoring
for their share of the prize. This is an article in praise of
dung beetles. O