【英语时差8,16】螳螂的眼睛2

（单词翻译）

 There are many dung beetles² competing for a limited amount of food at a dung pile, so when an individual is finished rolling a ball of dung it is in its best interest to make a quick escape. The fastest way to travel is in a straight path. Scientists noticed that when the moon was visible, these dung beetles did just that; they traveled in straight paths. But when it was a cloudy night, the beetles’ paths became shaky and erratic³. To be sure the beetles were indeed using the moon’s polarization and not the moon itself, the researchers used a filter that changed the pattern of the polarized moonlight by 90 degrees. The beetles responded by changing their course by 90 degrees. Scientists suspect that the dung beetle¹ isn’t the only animal to navigate⁴ by the moon’s polarization and that more such creatures will soon be discovered.