BellingenNSWAug 29

Celestial navigation of a native moth

During their annual 1,000-kilometre journey to cool inland caves the Bogong moths have to rest in human hubs. There they get vacuumed and sprayed as pests with pesticides or just squashed by 'progress'. Few of the endangered species make it after their round-the-world journey to return home to Australia’s highest mountain range.

"Our results suggest that Bogong moths use stellar cues and the Earth’s magnetic field to create a robust compass system for long-distance nocturnal navigation towards a specific destination."
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Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09135-3
#insects #Bogong #moths #CelestialNavigation #compass #AgrotisInfusa #MagneticField #MilkyWay #EndangeredSpecies #biodiversity

Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night - Nature

Every spring, Bogong moths use the starry night sky as a compass to navigate up to 1,000 km towards their alpine migratory goal.

Nature
Hacker NewsJun 27

Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09135-3

#HackerNews #Bogong #Moths #Stellar #Compass #Navigation #Nature #Nighttime #Migration

Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night - Nature

Every spring, Bogong moths use the starry night sky as a compass to navigate up to 1,000 km towards their alpine migratory goal.

Nature
Soh Kam YungJun 19

"Each spring, billions of Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) migrate hundreds of kilometres south to the Australian Alps, guided by the austral night sky. The discovery that they can find their way using only the stars — reported in an 18 June Nature paper — makes this moth the first invertebrate to be observed using celestial navigation for long-distance journeys."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01935-x

#Moths #Nature #Migrations #Bogong #Australia #Navigation #CelestialNavigation

These moths use the stars to navigate on an epic migration

Bogong moths migrate hundreds of kilometres and back each year using the southern night sky as their compass.

NatureMatchCuts PodcastJun 18
The #Bogong #moth follows the #stars to fly hundreds of miles. Their brain cells also got excited in response to specific orientations of the night #sky. apnews.com/article/bogo... Study: www.nature.com/articles/s41... #insects #astronomy #migration #moths #orientation #marvelsOfNature

This Australian moth uses the ...
The Bogong moth follows the stars to fly hundreds of miles

A new study finds an Australian moth follows the stars during its yearly migration, using the night sky as a guiding compass. When temperatures heat up, nocturnal Bogong moths fly hundreds of miles to cool down in caves by the Australian Alps. The moths are the first known invertebrates, or creatures without a backbone, to find their way across such long distances using the stars. Scientists put the moths in a night sky flight simulator and found that they relied on the night sky for direction. The study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

AP News
SouJun 12, 2024

A touch of snow on Bogong today, after the opening weekend of the ski season.

#Bogong #Snow #Australia

BongolianNov 19, 2023

The current issue of the insect #conservation non-profit, #Xerces Society is now available (free download). This issue is mostly about #moths
Gardening for Good
The Glorious Diversity of Moths
The #Bogong Moth
Enjoying Moths in Your Garden

#insects #entomology
https://www.xerces.org/publications/wings-magazine/wings-461-fall-2023-moths

Wings 46(1): Fall 2023 (Moths) | Xerces Society

Moths are all around us. They share our natural areas and gardens, and sometimes they share our food crops, and even our clothes. Love them or despise them, moths play profoundly important roles in our environment—as pollinators; as food for songbirds, bats, and other wildlife; as part of the clean-up crew that recycles organic waste; and more—and they deserve our conservation attention.

Gordon KerryJul 4, 2023
It was pointed out to me that my recent photo of Mt #Bogong looks real upside down. Spooky.
Radical AnthropologyMay 26, 2023

A fascinating story of ecology, change and #Aboriginal people's care for Country.

The ancient #Burramys -- Mountain Pygmy Possum -- a small species in a harsh habitat, depends on a moth food source which is plummeting.

The #Bogong moths, which 'aestivate' (rather than hibernate) in the mountains, have been a traditional seasonal marker in #Ngarigu Snowy Mountain Country. The #Ngambri people hold the sacred site of 'Uriarra Moth Stone', a flat expanse of granite the size of a basketball court. The name means 'running to the feast'. The rock is a feasting table, where everyone was invited to grow fat on the huge migration of delicious moths collected from the mountain caves in dillybags. The moths use the #MilkyWay to navigate on their huge migration from the Western Plains. But from incredible abundance, the moth population has plunged by 99.5% after three drought years. Possum babies simply starved in their mother's pouch. Following the giant bushfires of Jan 2020, the Burramys population was kept going by 'Bogong bikkies' -- a fallback food they had been tempted to eat made up with moth-like nutrition.

Read on for ' The Song of the Menero women' -- the first printed piece of music in Australia, which calls on the autumn full moon to bring the snows...

"Together these creatures have become symbols of what Australia stands to lose in this warming century: unique, species, ecological relationships and even entire ecosystems."

#ClimateDiary #Australia #MountBlueCow
https://www.biographic.com/of-moths-and-marsupials/

Of Moths and Marsupials - bioGraphic

The ancient relationship between the mountain pygmy possum and the bogong moth reveals the complexity of global climate change—and the lengths people may have to go to save some species from extinction.

bioGraphic
Mojo ♻️May 21, 2023

Researchers uncover extraordinary navigation skills of #bogong #moths in #NSW #SnowyMountains. The moths are the only known #insects in the world to travel such a long distance, at night, from a broad geographical region to a very specific destination, in their first and only return journey.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-20/bogong-moth-navigation-mystery-research/102367702

Researchers uncover extraordinary navigation skills of bogong moths in NSW Snowy Mountains

With a brain smaller than a 10th of a grain of rice, bogong moths are born with exceptional navigation skills. Scientists are starting to understand how.

ABC News
Manly BlogMay 20, 2023

Researchers uncover extraordinary #navigation skills of #bogong #moths in NSW Snowy Mountains. "If the bogongs stopped coming to the mountains, entire ecosystems could collapse from the bottom up”
I remember them being sprayed with #pesticides and sucked up with vacuum cleaners in Sydney.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-20/bogong-moth-navigation-mystery-research/102367702
migratory species, Threatened Species.
Australian #Alps #KeystoneSpecies #Extinction

Researchers uncover extraordinary navigation skills of bogong moths in NSW Snowy Mountains

With a brain smaller than a 10th of a grain of rice, bogong moths are born with exceptional navigation skills. Scientists are starting to understand how.

ABC News