Flight simulator for moths reveals they navigate by starlight

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Jun 18, 2025

Eric Warrant, a researcher from the University of Lund, dives into the incredible navigational skills of Bogong moths, which use the Milky Way to journey across Australia. These moths can travel up to 1,000 km, with studies revealing their unique abilities to navigate using both a stellar compass and Earth's magnetic field. Warrant also touches on other intriguing topics, like the threats faced by pangolins due to poaching and the potential cosmic collision between galaxies, linking these fascinating natural phenomena.

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INSIGHT

Moths Navigate Using Stars

Bogong moths use the stars as a visual compass during their night migrations across Australia.
They rely on the Milky Way's bright gradient for orientation, supplemented by the Earth's magnetic field when stars are obscured.

INSIGHT

Dual Compass Strategy in Moths

Bogong moths have dual navigation systems: a stellar compass and a magnetic compass.
If the stars are blocked by clouds, they default to the Earth's magnetic field for orientation.

INSIGHT

Moth Vision and Milky Way

Despite small eyes, bogong moths see the Milky Way as a bright, extended object allowing detailed navigation.
The Milky Way's intensity gradient likely aids moths in determining compass direction.

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In this episode:

00:45 The tiny moths that use the stars to navigate

Bogong moths use the stars to help them navigate during their enormous migration across Australia, according to new research. Every year, billions of these nocturnal moths travel up to 1,000 km to cool caves in the Australian Alps, despite having never been there before. By placing moths in a flight-simulator that also acted as a planetarium, the team behind the work showed that moths could use the bright Milky Way to help them fly in the correct direction.

Research article: Dreyer et al.

10:17 Research Highlights

Nigeria's pangolins are under threat because their meat is delicious, and how the gravitational pull of other galaxies may prevent the Milky Way colliding with Andromeda.

Research Highlight: Why pangolins are poached: they’re the tastiest animal around

Research Highlight: A long-predicted cosmic collision might not happen after all

12:37 How humans expanded their habitats before migrating out of Africa

New research suggests that shortly before modern humans successfully migrated out of Africa, they massively expanded the range of ecosystems they lived in. By combining climate modelling with data from archaeological sites across the African continent, researchers put forward evidence that 70,000 years ago, humans expanded the ecosystems they lived in to include diverse habitat types from forests to deserts. The authors suggest this ability to live in different places may have helped the later humans that migrated out of the continent around 50,000 years ago.

Research article: Hallet et al.

21:59 Briefing Chat

Blowing bubble-rings could be humpback whales' way of trying to communicate with humans, and the research suggesting that everyone’s breathing pattern is unique.

Science Alert: Humpback Whale Bubble Rings May Be an Attempt to Communicate With Us

Nature: How you breathe is like a fingerprint that can identify you

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