Re: Moths can see star patterns with their compound eyes

On 6/18/2025 11:25 AM, RonO wrote:

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/moths-fly-600-miles- particular-series-mountain-caves-scientists-think-rcna213703
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This is a sort of crazy science news article.  This one inch long moth breeds in the hot lowlands of Australia, but the larva grow up and become adults and then migrate 600 miles to caves in the Australian alps.  They can sense the magnetic field of the earth, but it has been discovered that they use star patterns to navigate to the caves.  They can project star the southern star pattern in a flight chamber and the moths will adjust their course dependent on how the star pattern is oriented.  They don't know which direction to go if shown a random pattern.
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They not only have to be able to interpret star patterns with their compound eyes, but using the existing pattern has to be instinctive. They may have only made the previous migration as sperm and egg cells.
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They have to figure out what the moths can see so that they can start to figure out the genetics that resulted in flying in the right direction based on that observed pattern.
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Moths have very small brains, but they obviously have very good visual interpretive skills and can act on those interpretations.
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Ron Okimoto
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fascinating-world-moth-vision-how-eyes- help-them-navigate-gemmell
 Article on the low light sensitivity of moth eyes.  From other articles compound eyes are good at detecting motion, and obtaining a broad perspective (the night sky), but are not very good at fine details, but they must be able to detect star patterns in a pretty crowded night sky.   In Australia the milky way stretches across the night sky.
 Ron Okimoto