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Thread: Finally, the truth about buglighters

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
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    Discovery Bay, CA
    Posts
    496

    Default Finally, the truth about buglighters

    Are insects drawn to light? New research shows it’s confusion, not attraction
    Science Jan 30, 2024 9:03 PM EST
    WASHINGTON (AP) — Like a moth to flame, many scientists and poets have long assumed that flying insects were simply, inexorably drawn to bright lights.

    But that’s not exactly what’s going on, a new study suggests.

    Rather than being attracted to light, researchers believe that artificial lights at night may actually scramble flying insects’ innate navigational systems, causing them to flutter in confusion around porch lamps, street lights and other artificial beacons.

    “Insects have a navigational problem,” said Tyson Hedrick, a biologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the research. “They’re accustomed to using light as a cue to know which way is up.”

    READ MORE: For insects that glow, artificial light is killing the vibe

    Insects do not fly directly toward a light source, but actually “tilt their backs toward the light,” said Sam Fabian, an Imperial College London entomologist and co-author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

    That would make sense if the strongest light source was in the sky. But in the presence of artificial lights, the result is midair confusion, not attraction.

    For the study, researchers attached tiny sensors to moths and dragonflies in a laboratory to film “motion-capture” video of flight — similar to how filmmakers attach sensors to actors to track their movements.

    They also used high-resolution cameras to film insects swirling around lights at a field site in Costa Rica.

    This allowed them to study in detail how dragonflies will circle endlessly around light sources, positioning themselves with their backs facing the beams. They also documented that some insects will flip upside down — and often crash land — in the presence of lights that shine straight upward like search lights.

    Insect flight was least disrupted by bright lights that shine straight downward, the researchers found.

    “For millions of years, insects oriented themselves by sensing that the sky is light, the ground is dark” — until people invented artificial lights, said Avalon Owens, a Harvard entomologist who was not involved in the research.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
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    3,485

    Default

    Well, that explains it. Thanks, Mike.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Santa Rosa
    Posts
    644

    Red face Bugs and Lights

    What "bugs" me are these new focused headlights that confuse my nighttime driving orientation. How much DNA do I share with a moth?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Posts
    49

    Default

    Not that much, about 60%

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Arnold, CA
    Posts
    586

    Default

    So, I'm confused and disoriented and have been drawn away from my "normal" path.
    Pretty much sums it up!
    __/)__
    All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it is vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

    T.E. Lawrence

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