Sun compass in animals

Many animals are able to navigate using the sun as a compass. Orientation cues from the position of the sun in the sky are combined with an indication of time from the animal's internal clock.

There is evidence that some animals can navigate using celestial cues such as the position of the sun. Since the sun moves in the sky, navigation by this means also requires an internal clock. Many animals depend on such a clock to maintain their circadian rhythm. Animals that use sun compass orientation are fish, birds, sea turtles, butterflies, bees, sandhoppers, reptiles, and ants.

Sun compass orientation is using the sun's position in the sky as a directional guide. The azimuth can be used along with sun compass orientation to help animals navigate. The sun azimuth can be defined as the direction of a celestial object from the observer, expressed as the angular distance from the north or south point of the horizon to the point at which a vertical circle passing through the object intersects the horizon.

Sun compass orientation can be used as a daily guide for animals but for some, including sea turtles, they use the sun as a migratory guide. Turtles use the sun’s azimuth compensation schedule in order to find their specific breeding locations each year.

Sandhoppers use the sun daily to determine where their home lays. With this experiment a group of sandhoppers were subjected to six hours of artificial lights and their movements were monitored when exposed to normal sunlight. The sandhopper's orientation when finally exposed to normal sunlight, showed that their orientation was off by 90 degrees when in respect to their home. This study helped show how an artificial light can alter the species relationship to the sun and how it can throw off the species basic directional abilities

In terms of high elevations, sun compass decreases its precision when providing information to animals. A study was performed to see if dung beetles respond better to orientations provided by the sun compass or skylight compass. The results of this study showed that dung beetles use their original bearings (i.e. sun compass) a majority of the time and rarely use skylight compass.

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