Why do moths fly towards bright lights at night?
Moths flying into lights is a phenomenon that has to do with how moths evolved to navigate at night. Before humans, the only source of light at night was the moon and stars. Moths evolved to fly in straight lines by keeping the moon at a particular angle to their line of sight. Since the moon moves very slowly across the sky, it is essentially stationary relative to the moth. Because the moth cannot fly past the moon, this method keeps the moth moving in a straight line. When humans came along and invented artificial lights, the moths were baffled. They would see a light and try to navigate by it using the moon-technique. Unfortunately these lights are closer to the moth, so as they fly past it they have to keep adjusting their flight path to keep the light at the same relative angle. This causes them to circle around the light and eventually crash into it. It would be interesting to see if moths are able to evolve a new navigation technique that prevents this problem, but that would t
