“It’s not what we think”: Why are insects attracted to artificial light?

2024-03-03 15:00:00

New data suggests that insects are not attracted to light, as commonly believed. Rather, researchers believe that the light sources used by insects to orient their flight, artificial lights end up disorienting them.

The team’s findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. “This is a prehistoric question. In early writings, people noticed it around the fire. It turns out that all our speculations about why and how turned out to be wrong,” explains Jamie Theobald, a biologist at Florida International University and co-author of the study.

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The researchers note that the insects’ “seemingly erratic” flight patterns are actually failed attempts to understand artificial light. “Rather than moving towards the light, the insects turned their dorsum, that is to say their back, towards the light, thus trying to move towards it. However, this highly conserved response to dorsal light can produce a continuous direction around the light and trap an insect,” the study authors explain via Gizmodo.

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