– Why are insects attracted to artificial light?
In: 52
(For some insects) they aren’t. Some insects navigate during by mantaining the moon at a specific angle, so that way they fly straight, similar to how we can use the northern star to head north.
An artificial light confuses them, since if they try to keep the light on a fixed angle, they end up spiralling towards it. Imagine you are walking forwards and want to always keep a certain post on your right, if you pass by the post then you need to turn right otherwise the post will be behind you, after that you can only spiral around it.
So it’s not like their objective is to get as close to the light as possible, they just get confused and spiral into it.
Edit: this is only one hypothesis, there are other possible answers such as insects being confused thinking the light is a flower/food source due to UV light that comes from the light source (since some flowers reflect UV light to attract insects)
It messes up their sense of navigation and they get drawn to these lights. Bugs aren’t the most intelligent animals and most likely confuse the light with other naturally occurring sources like the moon – Hence the saying drawn like a moth to the flame.
I did some extensive reading on this not that long ago. The answer is nobody knows. There are several theories, but none of them are backed by any kind of evidence, so every answer you’re going to get here is just that, theories that people have heard and assumed are true.
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