Covering a flat surface with some pattern of geometric shapes with no overlaps or gaps is called tiling. Tiling shows up in many places, from the tiles on our kitchen floors to bees’ honeycombs. They generally have a pleasing, even fascinating, quality, and their regularity often expresses some natural harmony.

In the late 1960s, a scientist named Ronald Lockley wrote, “How do animals find their way over apparently trackless country, through pathless forests, across empty deserts, over and under featureless seas?...They do so, of course, without any visible compass, sextant, chronometer, or chart...”¹

Like all animals, “simple” invertebrates such as the jellyfish continue to amaze zoologists.^1,2

Recently, scientists have trained a tiny species of box jellyfish (Tripedalia cystophora) to see and avoid obstacles.