Data from: How animals follow the stars

Throughout history, the stars have provided humans with ever more information about our world, enabling increasingly accurate systems of navigation in addition to fuelling some of the greatest scientific controversies. What information animals have evolved to extract from a starry sky and how they do so, is a topic of study that combines the practical and theoretical challenges faced by both astronomers and field biologists. While a number of animal species have been demonstrated to use the stars as a source of directional information, the strategies that these animals use to convert this complex and variable pattern of dim light-points into a reliable “stellar orientation” cue have been more difficult to ascertain. In this review, we assess the stars as a visual stimulus that conveys directional information, and compare the bodies of evidence available for the different stellar orientation strategies proposed to date. In this context, we also introduce new technologies that may aid in the study of stellar orientation, and suggest how field experiments may be used to characterise the mechanisms underlying stellar orientation.古往今来，恒星为人类持续提供了愈发丰富的周遭世界相关信息，不仅助力构建了愈发精准的导航系统，更催生了诸多重大科学争议。动物通过演化所习得的、从星空中提取的信息类型，以及具体的提取方式，这一研究课题融合了天文学家与野外生物学家共同面临的实践与理论双重挑战。尽管已有多项研究证实，诸多动物物种会将恒星作为方向信息的来源，但这些动物如何将复杂多变的微弱光点星图转化为可靠的“恒星定向”（stellar orientation）线索，其背后的策略仍较难确定。在本综述中，我们将恒星作为传递方向信息的视觉刺激物展开评估，并对迄今为止已提出的各类恒星定向策略的相关证据体系进行对比分析。在此背景下，我们还将介绍可助力恒星定向研究的新兴技术，并探讨如何通过野外实验来阐明恒星定向背后的作用机制。