Artificial Lights Disorient Insects, Not Attract Them, New Research Suggests

The glow from artificial lights interferes with insects' natural sense of direction, leading to disorientation and often crashes, according to a study published in Nature Communications.

New research suggests that insects are not attracted to artificial lights, but rather, the glow interferes with their natural sense of direction, causing them to become disoriented and often crash.
Insects may rely on the glow from stars, planets, and the moon to reorient themselves, a theory that has been supported by high-resolution camera footage of insects flying around artificial lights.
Light pollution continues to worsen, and researchers have found that diffuse light shining straight down is the least disruptive to insects' flight, while lights that point straight up cause the most difficulties.
Artificial light has been known to affect wildlife, often to their detriment, such as misleading sea turtle hatchlings or causing night-migrating birds to veer off course.
Some insects seem impervious to artificial light sources, such as oleander hawk-moths and some species of fruit flies, while others can't seem to escape it, a phenomenon that researchers hope to explore in the future.