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Dung beetle dance provides crucial navigation cues

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

Dung Beetle Dance Provides Crucial Navigation Cues

image: This is a dung beetle performing a dance on top of its dung ball. view more 

Credit: Emily Baird; Baird E, Byrne MJ, Smolka J, Warrant EJ, Dacke M (2012) The Dung Beetle Dance: An Orientation Behaviour? PLoS ONE 7(1): e30211. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030211

The dung beetle dance, performed as the beetle moves away from the dung pile with his precious dung ball, is a mechanism to maintain the desired straight-line departure from the pile, according to a study published in the Jan. 18 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

The purpose of this dance, in which the beetle climbs to the top of the ball and rotates, had previously been unknown, so the authors of the PLoS ONE study, led by Emily Baird of Lund University in Sweden, investigated the circumstances that cause the beetle to dance. They found that the beetles are most likely to perform the dance before moving away from the pile, upon encountering an obstacle, or if they have lost control of the ball, suggesting that the behavior is crucial for keeping the ball moving in a straight line.

Such direct, efficient navigation allows the beetle to quickly move away from the intense competition from other beetles at the dung pile. The authors propose that the beetles store a compass reading of celestial cues during the dance, which they then use to guide their straight-line trajectory.

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Citation: Baird E, Byrne MJ, Smolka J, Warrant EJ, Dacke M (2012) The Dung Beetle Dance: An Orientation Behaviour? PLoS ONE 7(1): e30211. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030211

Financial Disclosure: This study was funded by the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research (grant no. FA8655-07-C-4011), the Swedish Research Council, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Crafoord Foundation and the Royal Physiographic Society of Lund. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interest Statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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