Moths + Lights?

Question

why are moths attracted to light? surely it must hurt them yet they keep going back for more :S

Answer 1

Richard Dawkins has a good explanation for this in The God Delusion. Read it and everything will become clear.

Answer 2

Many say that it is because they navigate by the light of the moon.  As such, they would keep the moon on the same side of their body.  This doesn't make sense because the moon can be in any part of the sky.  Those who use this explanation say that they confuse lights for the moon and in keeping them on the same side, circle around them.  This explanation has been proven not to be true.

Unfortunately, nobody presently knows why moths do this.  It is difficult to get inside a moths little brain.  It could be heat, it could be gases, it could be light.  Nobody knows.

Answer 3

This is an essential phenomenon because Praying Mantises, Spiders, Frogs /Toads, Skunks and Bats to name a few; are attracted to the Moths in the surrounding light. I say it is innate and nature's way of feeding other species.

Answer 4

When the moths get close to the light, a different kind of behavior takes over. Instead of being attracted to the light, the moth is actually trying to avoid the light. When you think about it, this is only natural. To a creature of the night like a moth, daylight and by extension any bright light means danger. The moth doesn't fly directly away from the light due to a peculiarity of vision called a Mach band. A Mach band, which apparently is common to all sighted creatures, is the region surrounding a bright light that seems darker than any other part of the sky.

So it circles the light in the Mach band region, usually at a radius of about one foot, depending on the species. Eventually either its momentum carries it away or it finds a dark corner to hole up in.