Even the humble dung beetle, its life spent barely an inch above
the ground, pushing balls of waste, steers by starlight. This
unsuspected navigational mechanism, described 24 January in
Current Biology, is likely not limited to the Scarabaeus satyrus
examined by the Peering through compound eyes into the darkness
of night, insects around the world may be guided by stars. "It's
just another example of how wonderful the animal kingdom is, how
the most amazing things have evolved," said biologist Eric
Warrant of Sweden's Lund University, a co-author on the study.
Warrant has studied insect vision for nearly three decades,
specialising in the systems used by dung beetles, that taxonomic
superfamily of more than 5,000 species, found on every continent
but Antarctica and quietly responsible for processing much of
the animal world's During the daytime, dung beetles use the
sun's position as a point of reference. At night, they variously
orient themselves by the moon's bright light or, if the disk is
obscured by clo