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Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night

Dreyer, David LU ; Adden, Andrea LU ; Chen, Hui LU orcid ; Frost, Barrie ; Mouritsen, Henrik ; Xu, Jingjing ; Green, Ken ; Whitehouse, Mary ; Chahl, Javaan and Wallace, Jesse LU , et al. (2025) In Nature 643(8073). p.994-1000
Abstract

Each spring, billions of Bogong moths escape hot conditions across southeast Australia by migrating up to 1,000 km to a place that they have never previously visited—a limited number of cool caves in the Australian Alps, historically used for aestivating over summer1,2. At the beginning of autumn, the same individuals make a return migration to their breeding grounds to reproduce and die. Here we show that Bogong moths use the starry night sky as a compass to distinguish between specific geographical directions, thereby navigating in their inherited migratory direction towards their distant goal. By tethering spring and autumn migratory moths in a flight simulator3, 4–5, we found that, under naturalistic moonless... (More)

Each spring, billions of Bogong moths escape hot conditions across southeast Australia by migrating up to 1,000 km to a place that they have never previously visited—a limited number of cool caves in the Australian Alps, historically used for aestivating over summer1,2. At the beginning of autumn, the same individuals make a return migration to their breeding grounds to reproduce and die. Here we show that Bogong moths use the starry night sky as a compass to distinguish between specific geographical directions, thereby navigating in their inherited migratory direction towards their distant goal. By tethering spring and autumn migratory moths in a flight simulator3, 4–5, we found that, under naturalistic moonless night skies and in a nulled geomagnetic field (disabling the moth’s known magnetic sense4), moths flew in their seasonally appropriate migratory directions. Visual interneurons in different regions of the moth’s brain responded specifically to rotations of the night sky and were tuned to a common sky orientation, firing maximally when the moth was headed southwards. Our results suggest that Bogong moths use stellar cues and the Earth’s magnetic field to create a robust compass system for long-distance nocturnal navigation towards a specific destination.

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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Nature
volume
643
issue
8073
pages
7 pages
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • pmid:40533549
  • scopus:105008413750
ISSN
0028-0836
DOI
10.1038/s41586-025-09135-3
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.
id
003f3cbf-b321-42d9-a7df-3b9d8db42378
date added to LUP
2025-12-12 10:53:36
date last changed
2025-12-13 03:00:15
@article{003f3cbf-b321-42d9-a7df-3b9d8db42378,
  abstract     = {{<p>Each spring, billions of Bogong moths escape hot conditions across southeast Australia by migrating up to 1,000 km to a place that they have never previously visited—a limited number of cool caves in the Australian Alps, historically used for aestivating over summer<sup>1,2</sup>. At the beginning of autumn, the same individuals make a return migration to their breeding grounds to reproduce and die. Here we show that Bogong moths use the starry night sky as a compass to distinguish between specific geographical directions, thereby navigating in their inherited migratory direction towards their distant goal. By tethering spring and autumn migratory moths in a flight simulator<sup>3, 4–5</sup>, we found that, under naturalistic moonless night skies and in a nulled geomagnetic field (disabling the moth’s known magnetic sense<sup>4</sup>), moths flew in their seasonally appropriate migratory directions. Visual interneurons in different regions of the moth’s brain responded specifically to rotations of the night sky and were tuned to a common sky orientation, firing maximally when the moth was headed southwards. Our results suggest that Bogong moths use stellar cues and the Earth’s magnetic field to create a robust compass system for long-distance nocturnal navigation towards a specific destination.</p>}},
  author       = {{Dreyer, David and Adden, Andrea and Chen, Hui and Frost, Barrie and Mouritsen, Henrik and Xu, Jingjing and Green, Ken and Whitehouse, Mary and Chahl, Javaan and Wallace, Jesse and Hu, Gao and Foster, James and Heinze, Stanley and Warrant, Eric}},
  issn         = {{0028-0836}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{07}},
  number       = {{8073}},
  pages        = {{994--1000}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Nature}},
  title        = {{Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09135-3}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/s41586-025-09135-3}},
  volume       = {{643}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}