Why do moths like to fly around lights?

Moths and butterflies can be said to be close relatives "sisters", they both belong to the same order Lepidoptera, but moths are not as beautiful as butterflies.

Female moths secrete a chemical called extrasexual hormones, which is said to attract millions of male moths to mate in very small amounts, which is known in biology as "chemical communication".

Since most of the moth larvae harm crops, people use the characteristics of moths as "chemical communication" to synthesize a similar hormone that can kill male moths through the study of extrasexual hormones, so as to achieve the effect of "biological control". <>

Remember, this is a very useful piece of common sense!

Moths are generally gray and dark in color, but a small part is colorful, but it has more scales attached to its body than butterflies. The biggest difference between them and butterflies is their activity time, butterflies are all active during the day, while moths are mostly active at night, like light, and have phototaxis. Therefore, there is no clear racial distinction between moths.

Speaking of phototaxis, we often see a few moths hovering around a campfire under a street lamp in the summer, never leaving. The ancients had the verse "A wild moth flies in the lamp" to record the situation of seeing the moth at that time, of course, the idiom "the moth fights the fire" directly explains to us the moth's love for light.

So why do moths have such a "soft spot" for light? Some people think that it hunts under the lamp, but the moth feeds by sucking the sap of plants, so the theory of predation under the lamp is self-defeating.

In fact, the moth hovers under the lamp, not because it likes light, but because it is "lost". Moths travel at night and are guided by the moonlight. Its eyes are compound eyes composed of many single eyes, and the moonlight will always be projected from the same direction, and the moth will move forward according to this light, if the light disappears, it means that it has encountered an obstacle, and it will adjust its flight angle, find the light again, and then continue to move forward.

After a long period of observation and experimentation, scientists have finally unveiled the mystery of putting out fires. They found that insects like moths rely on moonlight to orient themselves when flying at night, moths always cast moonlight into their eyes from one direction, after the moth escapes from the bat chase or bypasses an obstacle, as long as it turns again, the moonlight still comes from the original direction, it finds its direction, it is a kind of astronomical navigation, and when the moth sees the light, they mistakenly think that it is moonlight.

Therefore, it also uses this fake moonshine to distinguish the direction. The Moon is far away from the Earth, and the moths fly in a certain direction as long as they keep a fixed angle to the Moon. However, the light is very close to the moth, and instinctively, the moth still maintains a fixed angle to the light source, so it can only circle the light until it finally exhausts.

Many insects only fly among the flowers after sunset, collecting honey on one side and pollinating plants on the other.

In the dark of night, they can find the flowers smoothly, thanks to the language of light. When insects that move at night fly through the air, they constantly rub in the air due to the vibration of their wings, generating heat energy, emitting ultraviolet rays, asking for directions to flowers, and thanks to ultraviolet light, causing a faint glowing echo and giving a warm invitation; When the special structure of the insect receives the glowing echo of the flower, the Gu six-foot stick will fly away to pollinate the flower so that its fruit can be passed on to future generations.

In this way, the light language of insects also contributes to the prosperity of nature. Moths think that flying according to a fixed angle of light is a linear motion, and as a result, the more they fly through the pit, the more they fly into the equiangular spiral and into the fire, this phenomenon is also known as the positive phototaxis of humans to insects, if you just stare at the light flying, I don't know if you will be blind, we are completely misled by humans, we are misled by humans.

Regarding the question of moths fighting fires and liking lights, so where did the moths go during the day, I will explain it here today.

In some corners of nature, it is generally a dark and damp corner that we don't notice, because their habit is not to haunt during the day, so most of the time they can't see moths during the day.

Some moths hide and rest during the day. Even if some moths fly during the day, they are not as conspicuous as flying under the lights at night and do not attract much attention.

Moths have phototaxis is relative, at night when there is light in the dark window outside, it will patrol the light and fly around the window, and during the day when the weather is good, they will hide.

Don't you know that the moth will die?

If it's because they think the lights in your room are the moon, you probably won't believe it, but it's true. Moths use the moonlight as a stable reference point to fly and keep the moon on their side while flying in a straight line. And when a bright light provides them with the same effect, the moth will end up circling around it as the light remains in a fixed position.

The brightness of the lights confuses them, and their flight trajectory will get smaller and smaller until they eventually hit the bulb.

Moth.