To reach this conclusion, Dr Warrant and his team captured 95 moths heading to their breeding grounds. Each was then put into a custom-made moth-friendly flight simulator under the open skies: a large transparent bucket-like enclosure with satellite images projected onto the bottom.

That rotation is important, and to understand why, we have to consider another animal that uses the stars as a guide: the dung beetle. Previous research has shown that dung beetles use a mental stellar map to return home after rolling a ball away from the dung heap. But their journey is quite different from the one bogong moths undertake.