TY - JOUR T1 - Spatial orientation based on multiple visual cues in monarch butterflies JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.02.13.947739 SP - 2020.02.13.947739 AU - Myriam Franzke AU - Christian Kraus AU - David Dreyer AU - Keram Pfeiffer AU - M. Jerome Beetz AU - Anna L. Stöckl AU - James J. Foster AU - Eric J. Warrant AU - Basil el Jundi Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/13/2020.02.13.947739.abstract N2 - Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) are prominent for their annual long-distance migration from North America to its overwintering area in Central Mexico. To find their way on this long journey, they use a sun compass as their main orientation reference but will also adjust their migratory direction with respect to mountain ranges. This indicates that the migratory butterflies also attend to the panorama to guide their travels. Here we studied if non-migrating butterflies - that stay in a more restricted area to feed and breed - also use a similar compass system to guide their flights. Performing behavioral experiments on tethered flying butterflies in an indoor LED flight simulator, we found that the monarchs fly along straight tracks with respect to a simulated sun. When a panoramic skyline was presented as the only orientation cue, the butterflies maintained their flight direction only during short sequences suggesting that they potentially use it for flight stabilization. We further found that when we presented the two cues together, the butterflies register both cues in their compass. Taken together, we here show that non-migrating monarch butterflies can combine multiple visual cues for robust orientation, an ability that may also aid them during their migration.Summary Non-migrating butterflies keep directed courses when viewing a simulated sun or panoramic scene. This suggest that they orient based on multiple visual cues independent of their migratory context. ER -