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Insects use the sun for navigation, compensating for its movement throughout the day; a process that remains poorly understood. This study proposes a model of how oscillatory signals of clock neurons could allow insects to transform the sun position into a stable geocentric heading reference.

Editor’s Choice Paper 2023. Hardware prototype of the model using a ring of UV-sensitive photodiode pairs, and test it under cloudy and occluded skies.

Modelling differential roles for identified dopaminergic and output neurons of the fruit-fly mushroom bodies combined with a novel dopaminergic plasticity rule explains neural and behavioural phenomena in olfactory learning tasks.

• Backward-walking ants can steer using learnt terrestrial visual cues.
• Steering does not require forward body alignment.
• Steering may be based on the integration of attractive and repulsive views.
• Peeking behaviour is triggered in periods of low directional certainty.
• Directional certainty is built on multiple sources of current and past information.

We propose a new hypothesis for how insects process polarised skylight to extract global orientation information that can be used for accurate path integration. Our model solves the problem of solar-antisolar meridian ambiguity by using a biologically constrained sensor array, and includes methods to deal with tilt and time, providing a complete insect celestial compass output. We analyse the performance of the model using a realistic sky simulation and various forms of disturbances, and compare the results to both engineering approaches and biological data.