Who needs the moon? Dung beetles can use the Milky Way to navigate. Back in 2003, Marie Dacke of Lund University in Sweden and colleagues showed that beetles use polarised light from the moon to help them move in a straight line. But the researchers were surprised to find that the insects could stay on course even on a moonless night. To see what else is going on, the team timed beetles crawling from the centre of a cylindrical drum to the edge. The drum was open-topped, so the insects could use the night sky to orientate themselves.
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