# Butterfly navigation and bees ...



## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

You may have spotted news headlines regarding a new model for Monarch butterfly navigation. Here's the paper behind it:

http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(16)30328-X

The report claims to have worked out the way Monarchs use observed sun position plus a circadian rhythm to know which way to fly as the sun moves across the sky during the day.

Honeybees also use the sun to navigate for foraging, and have been found to compensate for sun position over time. It will be interesting to follow this research strategy to see if they can detect the same mechanism in honeybees.

It is interesting that the "clocks" in Monarchs are apparently in their antennae.


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