Dung beetles might not have the best reputation among us, but a new discovery might just prove them smarter than we give them credit for. According to a new published study, dung beetles are the first documented case of an animal using our Milky Way galaxy for navigational purposes.
It's not an incredibly glamorous ideal, but the dung beetle apparently uses the galaxy to roll its ball away from the dung pile it found it. Dung beetles can be quite fierce about their plunder, and will fight aggressively over it. Once a beetle has gotten its fair share, all it wants to do is get away from the scuffle for resources.
"The dung beetles don't care which direction they're going in; they just need to get away from the bun fight at the poo pile," said Professor Marcus Byrne from Wits University, from where the study came from.
"We were sitting out in Vryburg (conducting experiments) and the Milky Way was this massive light source. We thought they have to be able to use this -- they just have to!"
The team of scientists have had some experience testing the capacities of the dung beetle before - they've also proven that the beetles use the sun, moon, and even polarized light to orient themselves.
Dung beetles tend to climb on top of their dung ball and shake a little "orientation" dance to find a source of light.
They ended up noticing that the beetles could manage a straight line even in a moonless (a.k.a lightless) night, meaning there should be something else at play. This time, they used an artificial sky, courtesy of the Wits Planetarium, and found that the dung beetles were able to move around using the 'Mohawk' of the Milky Way.
The study is a landmark due to the fact that it is the first proven case of animals using the Milky Way to navigate. According to the study's abstract, vertebrates, spiders, and insects are all believed to use our galaxy to get around, but the dung beetle is the first verified case.
Read the full published study, titled "Dung Beetles Use The Milky Way For Orientation."
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