Mechanisms of spectral orientation in a diurnal dung beetle
Abstract
Ball rolling dung beetles use a wide range of cues to steer themselves along a fixed bearing, including the spectral gradient of scattered skylight that spans the sky. Here, we define the spectral sensitivity of the diurnal dung beetle Kheper lamarcki and use the information to explore the orientation performance under a range of spectral light combinations. We find that, when presented with spectrally diverse stimuli, the beetles primarily orient to the apparent brightness differences as perceived by their green photoreceptors. Under certain wavelength combinations, they also rely on spectral information to guide their movements, but the brightness and spectral directional information is never fully disentangled. Overall, our results suggest the use of a dichromatic, primitive colour vision system for the extraction of directional information from the celestial spectral gradient to support straight-line orientation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 05, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1098/rstb.2021.0287
Entities
People
- Ayşe Yılmaz
- Basil El Jundi
- Emily Baird
- Gregor Belušič
- Marcus J. Byrne
- Marie Dacke
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- European Research Council
- Lund University
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology
- Stockholm University
- Swedish Research Council
- University of Ljubljana
- University of the Witwatersrand