The trip could take as little as twenty seconds, if a beetle went straight, or as long as several minutes, if it went in torturous circles. The beetles were quickest when they had an open view of the starry sky. When the scientists put tiny black, cardboard hats on the beetles, to block their overhead view, the insects meandered hopelessly. “It took them a long, long time,” Warrant said. (When the beetles wore clear plastic hats, they rolled straight.) Then the researchers moved the arena to a planetarium, where they could control the contents of the sky. Sure enough, when only the eighteen brightest stars were turned on, the beetles couldn’t navigate in a straight line. But when all the stars were turned off, and only the fuzzy stripe of the Milky Way remained, the beetles were quick and direct.
Dung beetles are ideal experimental subjects, Byrne said: “They are so tenacious in what they are trying to do. They cannot be distracted, they don’t get frightened, they don’t change their minds, they don’t get stage fright. They are so, so, so determined. If you set up your experiment correctly to get a yes or no answer, you will get an answer.” There are plenty more mysteries to explore, like how exactly the orienteering dance works, and which part of the brain does the computing. “You pick away at a question,” Byrne said. “It’s like unraveling a tapestry. You take it thread by thread, to try to understand the whole system.”
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