nobody knows exactly why for sure they come to light, navigation seems the most likely to me. It would explain the curved or circular pattern of flight on the approach assuming the moth locks the light source in its compound eye when trying to fly in a straight line. all the best Richard.
Is this really "trapping" the moths? It's more like giving the moths s place to chill. I mean they are free to leave any time they please. You just created like a moth night club.
In the video's i'm using a 125W mercury vapour lamp (with a choke / ballast) Pretty much the standard kit. 250W bulbs are available but they are very hot and can damage the catch. Or burn the top of your head!
The moth at 0.31 looks similar to the Magpie moth Abraxas grossulariata that we have in Ireland. Amazing diversity ,I hope to visit Malaysia/Borneo someday
Hi Karl, It does indeed and your comment made me take a closer look, according to H.S.Barlow's 'Moths of South East Asia it identifies as 'Pogonopygia nigralbata attenuata' and is a Geometrid moth as is the european Magpie to which you refer.
@@richardpoxon Thanks for the reply Richard interesting to see moths from the same family have such a distribution. I'm currently looking into doing an experiment on moth attraction to light, spectrum (blue vs red) vs intensity. Have you ever used LED lights? I'm not sure if mercury vapor bulbs come in different light spectrum.
@@karlt1180 MV bulbs are the best for insects, actinic uv lamps work but not as well. As for led's not really much good but ive not experimented with colour variation.
@@richardpoxon Thanks for the suggestions, the reason I'm going to try LED is that they are going to be used now for street lighting in Ireland. It's basically to see if moths will be attracted to them in either spectrum or intensity. I'll let you know how it works out.
