Dung beetles use Milky Way light for dung ball navigation

[James]

Dung beetles use light from the Milky Way to roll their balls of precious dung out of the way of competitors, scientists reported on Friday.

Even though they have just a tiny brain and weak eyes, the beetles use the progressive gradient of light in the skies, provided by the galaxy's mass of stars, to ensure they roll the balls in a straight line and do not circle back to rivals at the dung pile.

In an unusual experiment, biologists at South Africa's University of the...read more here: Dung beetles use Milky Way light for dung ball navigation

 

[goldfritter]

The prof mentioned in this article - Marcus Byrne - lectured me in first year. Fascinating guy. He even mentioned this research once or twice during lectures. He used to say beetles are the pinnacle of evolution, as they are by far the most successful of all species. This from Wikipedia:

"The order Coleoptera includes more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms. About 40% of all described insect species are beetles (about 400,000 species)."

The thing I respect him for the most is that he refuses to use PowerPoints to lecture. He actually connects with the people he's talking to rather than hide behind a lectern.

His favourite joke: "What's brown and sounds like a bell? Dung!"

EDIT: here's a TED talk by the man himself (blows my no-PowerPoint praise to hell, but anyway )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eosckjQ4mJ0&feature=player_embedded#!

 

[jinxmchue]

It's stuff like dung beetles using the galaxy to navigate that constantly assures me that we don't know even half of what we think we do.