The previous discovery that dung beetles use the light of the Milky Way to navigate the world was amazing in its own right, but now, a team of Lund University researchers has shed more light on these unique creatures and revealed that when they dance on top of a ball of dung, they take a "snapshot" of the positioning of celestial bodies in order to determine where to go.
"Other animals and insects also use the position of celestial bodies to navigate, but the dung beetles are unique - they are the only ones to take a snapshot where they gather information about how various celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon and stars, are positioned," says Basil el Jundi, a researcher at Lund University and first author of the study.
Using the photograph that they take of celestial bodies, dung beetles orient themselves in the world. Furthermore, the efficiency of the process means that it doesn't take long for them retrieve information, allowing them to use just a single snapshot for accurate navigation.
"We are the first to have shown that dung beetles are taking these snapshots," el Jundi said. "We are also the first to show how they store and use the images inside their tiny brains."
The dung beetle takes the picture during its dance, and it is subsequently stored in the brain. Afterwards, the beetle begins to roll its ball of dung and makes its way straight ahead by integrating the information stored in the snapshot with what it sees in the present external environment.
The Lund University team performed its research at a facility in South Africa that restricted dung beetles to artificial skies, which they used to orient themselves. The artificial sky allowed the team to alter the amount of light and positioning of the celestial bodies in it, which meant that they could compare how the beetles changed direction depending on the placement of these bodies.
Although ants also take snapshots to guide their navigation, these photographs are of their surroundings, not the sky, making this phenomenon unique to dung beetles.
El Jundi believes that their findings could stimulate further research that could help in the creation of navigation systems in driverless vehicles.
The findings were published in the May 12 issue of the journal Current Biology.
