No, there are not more important things going on in the world right now…
How far can a moth see?
I only ask because one summer night I had the porch light on, which had attracted a flurry of moths. This was hardly a unique phenomenon, of course. That’s kind of what moths do. But as we get into certain patterns of behavior without questioning them, I realized I had gone for years dealing with this in a very specific manner.
If I had to go outside for whatever reason, I would turn off the light for a few moments and let the moths disperse, or at least lose their sense of direction. No one wants moths in their house, and I am no exception. Moths are drawn towards lights, obviously, and turning them off kept them out, even if it made it way harder for me to actually get out because I now had a hard time seeing well enough to put my key in the lock.
But I also realized that I had a tendency to turn off the upstairs lights as well, making both the upstairs and downstairs dark. My concern, obviously, was that they’d be able to sense any available source of light, even at a distance of… uh, however many steps it is from my foyer to the upstairs.
Which seems crazy on the face of it, but… hey, how can we even be sure the range of vision of a moth. And come to that, vision probably isn’t even the right word. We’re dealing in perception here. If the old saying “like a moth to a burning flame” is accurate, then what we’re dealing with isn’t so much light as it is heat. They’re not attracted to the light itself, they’re attracted to the heat it gives off. So if a dark room is “cooler” than a lit room (even if it’s on a micronic scale that we’re too large to even notice), what is the range of perception for a creature that does in fact have that sense of scale?
Beats me.
I don’t have all the answers. I’m not a moth-ologist. But sometimes, I think it’s important to ask the questions.
So, yeah: moths are fascinating creatures.
And not just because they’re the only species that is repelled by their own balls.
Pryorball. 