A classic example is the way in which street lamps and building lights confuse baby sea turtles who use star and moonlight reflected off the water to help them find the ocean when the emerge from their beach nests, the Ecological Society of America said Thursday in a release.

The report, published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, said animals often mistake human-made objects for water because horizontal, shiny, dark surfaces -- such as dark glass surfaces of buildings, asphalt, dark-colored cars and black plastic sheeting -- reflect horizontally polarized light that is more strongly polarized than that reflected by water.