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Actually, they're the second known species to do so in the Animal kingdom. Humans have looked into the night sky and oriented themselves using the stars. Alth
by applecore 13y ago
Actually, they're the second known species to do so in the Animal kingdom.
Humans have looked into the night sky and oriented themselves using the stars.
Although dung beetles have probably been doing it longer.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoThis is what first came into my mind also. If hairless monkeys can evolve to do this, why not dung beetles? > Although dung beetles have probably been doing it longer. That isn't clear. I'm sure we've doing it for much longer than 10k years. That we've always been fascinated with the heavens means that perhaps even other apes were/are doing this.
- sigzero 13y agoFirst of all, we are not "hairless monkeys". Second, we did not "evolve to do this". Both of those statements are factually wrong.
- whyenot 13y agoIt's been known for year that some birds navigate using stars (see Stephen Emlen's research). What is different here is that an insect is doing it and using the "stripe of light" that is the milky way, not individual stars.