Dung beetles take a kind of sky snapshot before rolling away.

A dung beetle climbing onto its ball and spinning looks like odd insect choreography. It is navigation. Research from Lund University and collaborators found that ball-rolling dung beetles can form an internal representation of the celestial scene, a snapshot they use to maintain direction. This happens during the beetle's dance, when it rotates on top of the ball before rolling off. The phrase snapshot is scientific shorthand, not a literal photograph. The surprise is that a tiny brain can sample the sky once, then use that stored cue to keep a straight path.

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