Dung Beetle Skylight Polarization Compass

Dung beetles escaping a crowded dung pile don't navigate toward a destination -- they lock onto an arbitrary straight-line bearing and hold it, a strategy called menotaxis, using the polarization pattern that Rayleigh scattering imprints on the sky. This simulation renders that real polarization field as a grid of e-vector ticks over a 3D sky dome, computed from actual single-scattering optics, and models a beetle atop its ball reading the pattern to hold a bearing. Adjust sun elevation and cloud cover to see the degree of polarization overhead rise and fall, trigger a new orientation dance to pick a fresh escape bearing, or knock the beetle off course and watch it re-dance and steer itself back -- with heading noise and path drift that scale directly with how much of the sky's polarization signal is actually available.