SCIENCE LAB SPECIAL : BOGONG ASTRONOMY

HOW does this insect navigate vast distances? The answer is in the stars.

In the summer, the walls of the caves in the Australian Alps are tiled with Bogong Moths.

Months before, billions of these insects migrate 600 miles [ 965 kilometers ] to this destination - a place they never visited before.

Seeking refuge from the summer heat, they travel across southeast Australia to these cool Alpine caves.  Then in the fall, they migrate back to their breeding grounds, where they eventually die.

This remarkable journey has long puzzled scientists like Eric Warrant a neurobiologist at Lund University in Sweden. '' How on earth do these moths know where to go? '' he said.

NOW, a study in the journal Nature by Dr. Warrant and his colleagues reveals the details of the Insect's impressive feat, showing that the Bogong moths may be the first invertebrate to use the starry night sky for migration.

The findings suggest the insects use a set of internal compasses, one guided by the Earth's magnetic field and the other by the night sky to reach their destinations.

'' That an insect brain that is smaller than a grain of rice is able todo that is just remarkable,'' said Basil el Jundi, a neuroscientist at the University of Oldenburg in Germany who was not involved in the study.

The Australian Bogong moth has a two-inch [ 5-centimeter ] wingspsn, a small set of eyes and a brain that is roughly a tenth of the volume of a grain of rice.

Despite their small size, they have played a big role in Australia.

Once an important source of food for Indigenous Australians, the insect also holds a strong cultural value because of its impressive migration.

The World Students Society thanks Alexa Robles-Gil.