Many insects are attracted to small bulbs and light sources.So why are they not attracted to sun which is the brightest and biggest of all light sources
In: 1
Insects aren’t attracted to the sun. They have evolved to use the sun as sort of a compass to help guide them while flying. They have had millions of years to evolve and understand how the Sun and Moon work. The problem is that artificial lights confuse them, because they’re little brains can’t understand why the sun suddenly got so close to them. They try to navigate using that light as if it was the sun, but it’s so close that they get confused.
The bugs that are “attracted” to light, use it to fly straight at nighttime, because usually they are tracking the moon. The moon is far away, so it doesn’t move a lot when flying in a straight line.
When these bugs are attracted to human made light sources, those lights are much closer, so the light source moves in it’s vision as it flies, so the bugs end up circling the light instead of flying straight.
During the day, these bugs are either not awake, or don’t track anything at all.
Latest Answers