Artificial light drives insects completely crazy. Light bulbs, fire and streetlights cause butterflies and moths to fly in erratic circles around them, which is nothing like the behavior these little animals adopt during the day.
It was often believed that these animals were attracted to light, but thanks to a detailed study, it was possible to find out the real reason for this night madness:Insects ‘lose their way’ when they can’t see starlight.
And you just have to observe the moth’s movement throughout the night to understand that something is not right. Instead of flapping their wings around to find food or hide from the sight of predators, these little insects seem to caught In the black hole of fluorescent light.
This behavior caught the attention of a group of researchers from Imperial College London, who could not understand how the graceful movements of these animals could be captured by insignificant light.
They’re not the first to wonder what might motivate this strange behavior. For decades, all sorts of theories have been considered that might explain why insects go crazy when night falls.
One of the first ideas was that they could be drawn into the warmth of the flames. However, most insects with this behavior pyrophylls and they’re actually more attracted to cooler lights.
Your back is turned to the light
Later, the idea emerged that these animals were indeed affected by light. phototaxis. However, this answer does not serve to explain the movement of all insects approaching the lights; because if they got closer they would always collide with the light source. Therefore, it does not explain the irregular motion in circles.
But after several experiments, the results of which were published in ‘Nature Communications’, it proved that: These strange behaviors are related to the ability of flying insects to maintain balance..
And researchers have confirmed that this movement, circling around a light bulb, always occurs in a peculiar way: the butterflies always turn their backs to the light. “That’s what it’s called back light”says Samuel Fabian, lead author of this study, in an article published in ‘The Conversation’.
In natural conditions, insects are guided by the light in the sky, which is much brighter than the light emitted from the ground.They use their wings to know the right direction to fly.
Because these small animals, unlike the big ones, They lack the senses that would allow them to recognize which way the force of gravity is pushing in order to maintain balance..
Researchers examined the trajectories followed by moths when they encountered light from light bulbs in the laboratory. Scientists were extremely surprised that the animals never hit the light source because this movement did not fit any physical model described so far.
Strange flight patterns
“We decided to make high-speed videos to determine flight trajectories and body postures with great precision,” explains Fabian, “and we discovered that: flight patterns did not fit well with any existing models”.
Researchers saw how different insects with their backs towards the lighteven go so far as to do so complex pirouettes always maintain this position. “These orbital trajectories were just one of the behaviors we observed,” says Fabian.
This phenomenon highlighted an issue Serious problem faced by the planet due to artificial light. Light pollution affects astronomical observations, depriving the population of seeing the night sky –almost a third of the world’s population lives in places where the Milky Way cannot be seen–, It can cause problems falling asleep, cause fatal shock in some bird species, and even cause baby turtles to disappear before they can reach the sea.. This new discovery adds a new problem to the long list.
“Insects that get stuck around a light seem to make the most of it,” insists the researcher, emphasizing: This behavior deprives them of food, exposes them to predators, and exhausts them to the point of exhaustion..
Reference report:: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3
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