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How do insects use the Sun as a compass?

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A herd of wildebeest, including calves, moves across a dusty savanna in Africa with scattered trees visible in the background. — Migration A herd of common wildebeest (*Connochaetes taurinus*) migrating across a dusty savanna in Africa. The animal is a keystone species (i.e., a species with a disproportionately large effect on its biological community) in plains and acacia savanna ecosystems from southeastern Africa to central Kenya.

Insects, such as bees and certain beetles, utilize the Sun as a compass to plot their course with high accuracy.1

Rather than relying solely on the Sun's position, many insects have the ability to resolve the plane of polarized light in the sky. As sunlight passes through the atmosphere, it is scattered in a way that creates a specific pattern of polarization directly related to the Sun's position.2

Insects possess specialized photoreceptors in their compound eyes that are sensitive to this polarization. The organization of photopigment molecules within the rhabdoms of their eyes allows them to detect this pattern even when the sky is overcast. By matching the polarization pattern in the sky to the arrangement of their internal detectors, insects can identify the symmetry plane of the pattern, which reveals the Sun's location. This mechanism allows them to maintain a consistent compass bearing during flight.2