This is an exciting new study providing an original and seemingly convincing explanation of this age-old puzzle. The idea is that insects are not attracted to a light source but come to it because of navigation errors. The title is "Why flying insects gather at artificial light." The publisher has posted a great 7-minute video explaining the study:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00261-y
Here is an excerpt from the Abstract of the study:
"Contrary to the expectation of attraction, insects do not steer directly toward the light. Instead, insects turn their dorsum toward the light, generating flight bouts perpendicular to the source. Under natural sky light, tilting the dorsum towards the brightest visual hemisphere helps maintain proper flight attitude and control. Near artificial sources, however, this highly conserved dorsal light-response can produce ...mais ↓
This is an exciting new study providing an original and seemingly convincing explanation of this age-old puzzle. The idea is that insects are not attracted to a light source but come to it because of navigation errors. The title is "Why flying insects gather at artificial light." The publisher has posted a great 7-minute video explaining the study:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00261-y
Here is an excerpt from the Abstract of the study:
"Contrary to the expectation of attraction, insects do not steer directly toward the light. Instead, insects turn their dorsum toward the light, generating flight bouts perpendicular to the source. Under natural sky light, tilting the dorsum towards the brightest visual hemisphere helps maintain proper flight attitude and control. Near artificial sources, however, this highly conserved dorsal light-response can produce continuous steering around the light and trap an insect. Our guidance model demonstrates that this dorsal tilting is sufficient to create the seemingly erratic flight paths of insects near lights and is the most plausible model for why flying insects gather at artificial lights."
The full research study is posted at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3
This website also contains, as supplementary information for the study, 7 additional videos showing the behavior of various flying insects around light sources.
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Moths of Ontario
