Animal Vision: Celestial navigators

The life of a dung beetle is not exactly glamorous, yet these unusual beetles are remarkable celestial navigators, using the sun, moon and even the stars to guide their way.

In nature nothing goes to the waste. There’s a saying that goes ‘one’s man’s trash is another man’s treasure’, which can be applied just as well to the animal kingdom as to us humans; just instead of ‘trash’ it is ‘dung’ and instead of ‘treasure’ it is ‘dinner’. Any pile of dung appearing on the African savannah does not last long, disappearing completely after only a few hours of frenetic activity by a select group of insects, chief of which is the dung beetle. Given their lifestyle, it is no mystery how the dung beetles got their name. These large, flying beetles find fresh piles of dung using their sense of smell and, having crash-landed face first into it, proceed to roll pieces into a large ball, two or three times their own size. They roll these balls away, backwards, as far and as fast as possible from the original pile before digging a hole large enough to fit both them and their ball. Once safely underground, they proceed to eat the dung ball over the course of a few days. Why the hurry to roll away?