WHY ARE MOTHS ATTRACTED TO BRIGHT LIGHTS?
Dear Cecil:The other day one of my professors asked why moths were attracted to light. Someone thought it might be because they thought it was the moon. But even granting that moths might not be bright enough to tell a porch light and a celestial body apart, why should they be interested in the moon? Please, Cecil, this may be worth extra credit to me. — Shannon, Montreal Dear Shannon: Always glad to help Straight Dopesters with their homework, ma petite. You going to let me have the gold star? For many years it was thought the moon did have something to do with the attraction of moths to light. The so-called light-compass theory held that moths used the moon as a navigational beacon. By keeping it at a constant angle to their direction of travel, they were supposedly able to fly in a straight line. The trouble (for the moths) came when they made their sightings on a close-up light source like a candle flame. Instead of heading in a straight line, they flew around the flame in an ever-
