Dr. Vivek Jayaraman and colleagues at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus discovered that the ellipsoid body located in the middle of a fly's brain acts like a compass to help navigate flight even in darkness. By placing the flies into a small virtual reality arena and having the flies walk on a rotating ball, they could study the activity of neurons within the ellipsoid body while the animal was moving.
These videos show how the fly experiment was done:
Check out the news release for more information about this neat study.
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And how did the flies get their navigation system?
The same way the "birds got their beaks".
See article nearby.