Dung Beetles Navigate by Storing Star Maps in Their Tiny Brains

droppings mallet have this really neat trick by which they ’re able to practice the position of the stars to tailor themselves along a straight bloodline , make them the only recognise animal to use the Milky Way for navigation . Exactly how they do this has remain a mystery story — until now .

For intellectual nourishment , dung beetles famously detach a chunk of tail from a pile of droppings , then shape it into a ball and vagabond it away . To protect their meal from rival , droppings beetles have to make their getaway as quickly as potential — and even these dirt ball bonk that the shortest route between two distributor point is a straight line . Accordingly , dung beetles relocate their precious ball of poop by pluck them in outstandingly straight lines .

A few age ago , researchers from Lund university showed that dung beetles bank on an internal compassthat East the bug according to the positions of the asterisk and Moon . A follow - up study showedthey even employ the thick band of the Milky Way for pilotage . But the mechanism that enables them to use these astral cues remain unknown . Now , this same squad of dung beetle - obsessed researchers say they ’ve at long last figured it out . These worm are able to look up into the night sky and take a “ supernal snapshot , ” which they stack away as a mathematical function inside their mentality . The researchnow appearsin Current Biology .

To demonstrate this , a research team led by Basil el Jundi experiment with muck beetles in simulated conditions . Instead of expose them to the literal world and the real night sky , the researchers created an artificial firmament . They were capable to mess up with the dung mallet by regulating the amount of light and by exchange the place of the celestial bodies . This allow the scientists to compare how the beetle were compensating and potentially altering their trajectories establish on the placement of the artificial stars and Moon .

Despite these simulated conditions , the beetles were still able to tailor themselves . This research evince that , even if the night sky present a physical impossible action , muck beetles are still able-bodied to observe their bearings — but only if the mavin , or clew , are still visible when the snapshot was ab initio taken . When the stars were removed or altered , the droppings beetle were out of fortune , and their orientation skills suffered accordingly . Tellingly , a like outcome happens to them in the genuine reality when the sky becomes overcast .

To broach the process , the muck beetle mount to the top of its egg of poop and performs a “ dancing ” whereby it rotate about its vertical axis . It ’s during this saltation that a beetle take aim its shot , which it stores in its brain for succeeding reference . When the beetle startle to roll its ball of poop , it ’s able to move in a straight line by match the internally stash away range of the sky with its current environment . As the investigator conclude in their work , it ’s “ a simple but efficient mechanism for straight - line orientation . ”

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.