Skip to main content
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1982 Jul;79(14):4451–4455. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.14.4451

The bee's map of the e-vector pattern in the sky

Samuel Rossel 1, Rüdiger Wehner 1
PMCID: PMC346690  PMID: 16593211

Abstract

It has long been known that bees can use the pattern of polarized light in the sky as a compass cue even if they can see only a small part of the whole pattern. How they solve this problem has remained enigmatic. Here we show that the bees rely on a generalized celestial map that is used invariably throughout the day. We reconstruct this map by analyzing the navigation errors made by bees to which single e-vectors are displayed. In addition, we demonstrate how the bee's celestial map can be derived from the e-vector patterns in the sky.

Keywords: polarized light, astronavigation

Full text

PDF
4451

Images in this article

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Brines M. L., Gould J. L. Bees have rules. Science. 1979 Nov 2;206(4418):571–573. doi: 10.1126/science.206.4418.571. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES