dark skies

It’s an observation as old as humans gathering around campfires: Light at night can draw an erratically circling crowd of insects. In art, music and literature, this spectacle is an enduring metaphor for dangerous but irresistible attractions. And watching their frenetic movements really gives the sense that something is wrong – that instead of finding food and evading predators, these nocturnal pilots are trapped by a light. Sadly, centuries of witnessing what happens have produced little certainty about why it happens. How does a simple light change fast, precise navigators into helpless, flittering captives? We are researchers examining flight, vision and evolution, and we have used high-speed tracking techniques in newly published research to provide an answer. The reason insects fly around light will surprise you. Moths to a flame? Many old explanations for this hypnotic behavior have not fully panned out. An early notion w...