The Dung Beetle Compass.

What do a burly rower, a backstroke swimmer and a hard-working South African dung beetle all have in common? The answer is: they all benefit from moving along a straight path, and do so moving backwards. This, however, is where the similarity ends. While the rower has solved this navigational challenge by handing the task of steering to the coxswain, who faces the direction of travel, and the swimmer is guided down her lane by colourful ropes, the beetle puts its faith in the sky. From here, it utilises a larger repertoire of celestial compass cues than is known to be used by any other animal studied to date. A robust internal compass, designed to interpret directional information, has evolved under the selective pressure of shifting today's lunch efficiently out of reach of competitors, also drawn to the common buffet. While this is a goal that beetles might share with the hungry athletes, they reach it with drastically different brain powers; the brain of the beetle is several times smaller than a match head, containing fewer than a million neurons.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Current Biology

• Publication date

  2018-09-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Physics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2018.04.052PMID 30205078
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Anatomical organization of the brain of a diurnal and a nocturnal dung beetle

  2017cited by this paper
• An Anatomically Constrained Model for Path Integration in the Bee Brain

  2017cited by this paper
• An Anatomically Constrained Model for Path Integration in the Bee Brain.

  2017cited by this paper
• Stellar performance: mechanisms underlying Milky Way orientation in dung beetles

  2017cited by this paper
• The insect central complex.

  2016cited by this paper
• A Snapshot-Based Mechanism for Celestial Orientation.

  2016cited by this paper
• Central-complex control of movement in the freely walking cockroach.

  2015cited by this paper
• Neural coding underlying the cue preference for celestial orientation

  2015cited by this paper
• Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration

  2015cited by this paper
• Organization and functional roles of the central complex in the insect brain.

  2014cited by this paper
• Dung beetles use the Milky Way for orientation.

  2013cited by this paper
• Dung beetles ignore landmarks for straight-line orientation

  2012cited by this paper
• How dim is dim? Precision of the celestial compass in moonlight and sunlight

  2011cited by this paper
• Animal behaviour: Insect orientation to polarized moonlight

  2003cited by this paper

• Organic Semiconductor Single Crystals: A New Platform for Polarization‐Sensitive Photodetection

  2026cites this paper
• Self‐Adaptive Polarized Photoresponse in Organic Single‐Crystal Phototransistors for Bionic Night‐Time Polarization Perception

  2025cites this paper
• From skylight cues to magnetic fields: the toolkit of insect long-distance navigation.

  2025cites this paper
• Honeybees acquire a spatial memory by learning landmarks and visual patterns in parallel

  2025cites this paper
• Neuromorphic Polarization Vision Enabled by Organic Single‐Crystal Photosynaptic Transistors

  2025cites this paper
• Development of a biomimetic Milky Way dark sky compass

  2025cites this paper
• 曙暮光影响的大气偏振模式建模方法研究

  2024cites this paper
• A Deep Learning Biomimetic Milky Way Compass

  2024cites this paper
• An adaptive fusion factor-based polarization sensor/sun sensor/IMU integrated navigation method for BAHRS

  2024cites this paper
• OpenSky: A Modular and Open-Source Simulator of Sky Polarization Measurements

  2024cites this paper
• Integration of optic flow into the sky compass network in the brain of the desert locust

  2023cites this paper
• Light orientation in the ball-rolling dung beetle, Gymnopleurus sturmi (MacLeay, 1821), in Morocco (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae: Gymnopleurini)

  2023cites this paper
• State-dependent, visually guided behaviors in the nudibranch Berghia stephanieae.

  2023cites this paper
• Biomimetic Polarized Light Navigation Sensor: A Review

  2023cites this paper
• A model of cue integration as vector summation in the insect brain

  2023cites this paper
• A Computer Vision Milky Way Compass

  2023cites this paper
• The influence of stimulus history on directional coding in the monarch butterfly brain

  2023cites this paper
• Behavioral responses of free-flying Drosophila melanogaster to shiny, reflecting surfaces

  2022cites this paper
• Neuroanatomy of stomatopod central complexes offers putative neural substrate for oriented behaviors in crustaceans

  2022cites this paper
• Effects of Avermectins on the Environment Based on Its Toxicity to Plants and Soil Invertebrates—a Review

  2022cites this paper
• Solar position acquisition method by structural similarity characteristics of skylight polarized pattern images

  2022cites this paper
• Neural representation of goal direction in the monarch butterfly brain

  2022cites this paper
• State-dependent, visually-guided behaviors in the nudibranch Berghia stephanieae

  2022cites this paper
• Parallel motion vision pathways in the brain of a tropical bee

  2022cites this paper
• Moving towards a far-away goal: a foreword

  2021cites this paper
• Towards a common terminology for arthropod spatial orientation

  2021cites this paper
• Bioinspired polarized light compass in moonlit sky for heading determination based on probability density estimation

  2021cites this paper
• Synaptic targets of photoreceptors specialized to detect color and skylight polarization in Drosophila

  2021cites this paper
• The long-distance flight behavior of Drosophila supports an agent-based model for wind-assisted dispersal in insects

  2021cites this paper
• A unified mechanism for innate and learned visual landmark guidance in the insect central complex

  2021cites this paper
• Navigation and orientation in Coleoptera: a review of strategies and mechanisms

  2021cites this paper
• The long-distance flight behavior of Drosophila suggests a general model for wind-assisted dispersal in insects

  2020cites this paper
• Spatial orientation based on multiple visual cues in non-migratory monarch butterflies

  2020cites this paper
• Orcokinin in the central complex of the locust Schistocerca gregaria: Identification of immunostained neurons and colocalization with other neuroactive substances

  2020cites this paper
• The geomagnetic field does not appear to influence navigation in Eastern painted turtles

  2020cites this paper
• Towards a multi-level understanding in insect navigation.

  2020cites this paper
• Spatial orientation based on multiple visual cues in monarch butterflies

  2020cites this paper
• Visual metamorphoses in insects and malacostracans: Transitions between an aquatic and terrestrial life.

  2020cites this paper
• How Dung Beetles Steer Straight.

  2020cites this paper
• A Neural Network for Wind-Guided Compass Navigation.

  2020cites this paper
• The brain behind straight-line orientation in dung beetles

  2019cites this paper
• Polarized skylight-based heading measurements: a bio-inspired approach

  2019cites this paper
• Multimodal cue integration in the dung beetle compass

  2019cites this paper
• Neuroarchitecture of the central complex of the desert locust: Tangential neurons

  2019cites this paper
• Abbreviated title : Anatomy of the beetle central complex

  2018cites this paper
• Neuroarchitecture of the dung beetle central complex

  2018cites this paper