ELi5: why do moths gravitate toward light during the night, where it’s absent, but nowhere to be found during the day, where it’s plentiful

Question

ELi5: why do moths gravitate toward light during the night, where it’s absent, but nowhere to be found during the day, where it’s plentiful

In: 22

Answer 1

There’s very recent, [new research](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/science/moths-to-a-flame-insects-light.html) on this.

The new, proposed explanation is that moths and other insects use light to orient their up/down axis. Which works fine when the light is high up above, but fails miserably when the brightest light is nearby and low down.

High-speed photography shows that insects tend to flip in flight so that their backs are pointed towards the light. And if the dominant light is bright, close and near ground level, for example, that means that they end up doing paths akin to continual, banking turns around it. So they’re not actually attracted to the light; rather, they’re confused by it in a way that keeps them flying around it.