IN THE SUMMER OF 2009, one of us (Byrne), at least, was having fun. He was in the bush with his friends, playing with dung beetles. These friends, a group of scientists from Sweden, Australia, Germany and South Africa have managed to get together every year since 2003 to run experiments on dung beetle orientation.

We had already shown that dung beetles were the first animals known to be able to orientate by polarised light from the moon. Our next task was to measure how the nocturnal species performed when compared with their diurnal (day-active) counterparts. This involved working all day and most of the night when the moon was in a particular phase, getting slimmer as it waned into a silver sliver lying on its back in the African sky. We were tired but happy. The nocturnal beetles were incredible; they could roll their dung balls in a straight line under a cat's whisker of a moon.

But when the moon was absent and we relaxed, drinking cold beer under the light of the Milky Way, we were fixated with the sky. If we could see this ethereal light, then surely the beetles could too, and therefore use it for orientation? At the time only humans, along with a few species of birds and seals, were known to be able to orientate by the stars. Our beetle companions were a (relatively) large, enigmatic ball-rolling species called Scarabaeus satyrus. We knew they could do it, but needed to prove it with scientific rigour. The key challenge was to stop the beetles looking at the sky, which is equivalent to asking a goldfish not to swim. How does one stop a beetle looking at the sky? Not so difficult if you fit it with a little peaked cap. But not that easy either when it has no ears to hook things onto, and its head is flat and shiny and has evolved to stop anything sticking to it.

Nevertheless, once their hats were glued precariously in place, the capped beetles were lost, wandering aimlessly with their dung balls, all dressed up and nowhere to go. Ten minutes earlier, the same uncapped individual had streaked across the starlit savanna with the confidence of a taxi driver heading for home.