Nocturnal ants use polarised moonlight to find their way home

They may have a brain the size of a pinhead and terrible eyesight, but bull ants can navigate at night using even the faintest polarised light emitted by a crescent moon.

Light from the sun and the moon consists of waves that vibrate in different directions, but on entering the atmosphere it becomes polarised, meaning the waves are aligned in the same direction across the sky. Many animals can detect this polarity in sunlight and use it…