Eran Levin in front of a blacklight screen.
Eran Levin, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona studies Hawk Moths. He used a technique called backlighting to catch them and in the process catches numerous other insects as well.
Moths navigate by keeping bright objects like the moon and stars at a constant angle. It turns out that artificial light disrupts the moths's detection of moonlight. They end up using the artificial light source as a navigation cue and as a result wind up circling the light bulb to keep it at a constant angle.
Check out his blog entry in Scientific…
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