If you’ve ever wondered why the moth that entered your home one night keeps buzzing around the lamp for days, or why the lighted mosquito traps work so well, we have a surprising new answer for you. While some say this response is due to insects being attracted to artificial lights for some reason, new research says this behavior has nothing to do with attraction to light. Instead, this behavior is probably due to them being trapped by him.
The connection between insects and light is believed to have something to do with their body’s control systems, says Samuel Fabian, an Imperial College London researcher and co-author of a new paper now available on the bioRxiv preprint server.
Researchers say they discovered three important things when examining insects’ attraction to light. First, if insects fly over the beam, they start trying to fly upside down, turn upside down and fall. The second thing they found was that after passing under a light, they start climbing at a steep angle before stopping and falling.
Finally, the researchers discovered that the insects fly at right angles to the light, orbiting the light, or “orbiting” the light instead of flying directly into the light. Although insects may appear to be flying directly into the light, it is actually believed to have somehow interfered with the body’s control systems and caused them to experience these effects.
According to this idea, insects experience something called the “backlight response,” as they constantly try to keep the light on their backs as they approach. This reflex is also seen in some fish and is basically a way of determining which direction is up and keeping their bodies upright. This experience is generally not a problem for the animals. However, at dusk and dawn, insects can have problems due to this reflex.
The researchers believe the way insects rely on their backlight response may determine how they respond to light. In other words, the problem here is that insects seem to be drawn to light not because they feel an attraction to light. Instead, scientists believe the insects lose control as they approach light.
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