Moth uses stars to navigate

A species of Australian moth travels up to a thousand kilometres every summer using the stars to navigate, scientists said Wednesday, the first time this talent has been discovered in an invertebrate covering vast distances.

When temperatures start rising every year, Bogong moths embark on the long night-time flight from their home on the country's eastern coast to the cool inland shelter of caves in the Australian Alps.

It has recently been discovered that they can use Earth's magnetic field like a compass to stay on track during their trip of up to 1,000 kilometres.

Now, a study published in the journal Nature has found that the moths can also use the light from the stars and the Milky Way to find their way through the dark.

"This is the first invertebrate that's known to be able to use the stars for that purpose," study co-author Eric Warrant of Sweden's Lund University told AFP.

The only other invertebrate known to use stars for orientation are dung beetles -- but that is over very short distances, Warrant said.

Out of all the animal kingdom, only some birds, possibly seals and of course humans can use starlight to navigate long distance.

Bogong moths, which are around three centimetres long and are named after the Indigenous Australian word for brown, now join that list.