It’s an observation as old as humans gathering around campfires: Light at night can draw an erratically circling crowd of insects. In art, music and literature, this spectacle is an enduring metaphor ...

Fireflies, otherwise known as lightning bugs, are known for their ability to glow at night. According to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, fireflies are actually not flies, but are ...

Chasing lightning bugs on a summer night is a rite of passage for many youngsters. You know how it goes, pursuing the flickering lights across the dusk sky until you clap your hands in a sphere around ...

It’s the last day of June and I’m standing under the overhang on my back deck protected from the last drips of a rainstorm. It’s past nine o’clock but not quite dark yet. But the yard is starting to ...

A new study offers an alternative to earlier explanations for why moths and other bugs are attracted to artificial sources of illumination. By Joshua Sokol Moths and other insects are drawn to lights ...

At night in the Costa Rican cloud forest, a small team of international scientists switched on a light and waited. Soon, insects big and small descended out of the darkness. Moths with spots like ...

You’ve probably seen or heard at least once in your lifetime about fireflies – the famous light-emitting insects! They form the Lampyridae family and are sometimes called glowworms or lightning bugs.

Have you ever wondered why that moth that accidentally got into your house last night keeps buzzing around the ceiling light or why lighted mosquito traps work so well? While some have always said ...

The observation that bugs are attracted to light goes back centuries — probably even millennia. Shakespeare referenced the strange phenomenon in 1596 when, in "The Merchant of Venice," he wrote, "Thus ...