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So the researchers captured bogong moths during their migration, tethered them to a metal rod in the center of a plastic drum and recorded what direction they rotated in response to a moving felt cutout of a mountain and a synthesized magnetic field, the same strength as Earth’s.

“It’s as if the bogong moth is the dreary-colored, nocturnal cousin of the monarch butterfly.”

Every spring in Australia, billions of bogong moths migrate from the arid plains of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria to the meadows of the Australian Alps to escape the impending heat.

Australia’s small, brown, ordinary-looking bogong moths are the only known insect besides the monarch butterfly to manage such a long, directed and specific migration.

But scientists have now discovered that bogong moths have a magnetic sense to help them.