What is the passage mainly about?

Some dung beetles use broad patterns of celestial light to keep their food-moving routes straight. (The passage describes daytime and nighttime sky cues, then explains experiments showing less direct routes when those cues vanish.)

Why is a fairly straight route valuable to a ball-rolling beetle?

It helps the beetle leave competitors quickly without wasting effort in circles. (The opening says other beetles may steal the food and that circular wandering is costly, making direct escape advantageous.)

In this passage, what is a “bearing”?

A direction of travel that can be maintained (Polarized light helps insects maintain a bearing as they travel, so bearing means a chosen direction rather than an object.)

What can researchers use to block a beetle’s view upward?

Small caps (The final paragraph states that small caps can block the beetles’ upward view during controlled tests.)

A Compass Above the Dunes: Level 3 Reading Comprehension Questions

A dung beetle that has shaped a ball of food needs to leave a crowded pile quickly. Other beetles may steal the ball, so wandering in circles is costly. Some ball-rolling dung beetles climb onto their prize, turn in place, and then push it away along a fairly straight route. Their useful compass is overhead.

By day, the Sun can provide a strong direction cue. Even when the Sun is partly hidden, patterns of polarized light across the sky can help some insects maintain a bearing. At night, certain dung beetles can use the broad glow of the Milky Way. This does not mean they read individual constellations as a person might. Instead, the uneven band of light gives them a large-scale orientation cue.

Researchers have tested these abilities by changing what beetles can see. In controlled arenas, small caps can block a beetle’s view upward, while projected skies can offer selected celestial patterns. Routes become less direct when useful sky cues disappear. Such experiments do not tell us what the journey feels like to a beetle. They do show that a small traveler can extract direction from light spread across an immense sky.

Comprehension questions