All hail the phototaxis

 

Why are moths attracted to flames, porchlights, streetlights and and other artificial light sources? Well, according to ChattyGPT:

"Moths are attracted to flames due to a phenomenon called phototaxis, which is the movement of an organism in response to light. Moths, like many other insects, are generally positively phototactic, meaning they are drawn toward light sources."

Apparently, moths use natural light sources like the mon or stars to get around at night. They keep the light source at a certain angle as a guide for flying straight. But when they run into an artificial light source like a porchlight, it is much closer and gives off light in all directions unlike the moon or stars. The moths get confused and begin spiraling toward the light. If it happens to be a candle flame, well, you know what happens. They've hailed the phototaxis and get burned by the fare (so to speak).

One can only image what Mothman does.

 

Being much bigger than you average moth, I think Mothman just grabs candle flame and gets pissed. So then it needs a break.

See how I cleverly segued into Mothman and coffee? It was so skilled, you likely didn't see it coming or understand why. 

Nor, do I imagine, many of you care (and I use the term "many" of you more figuratively than literally since it is difficult to quantify the smattering of random people who actually read my blog). 

But I like to think of my blog as the flame and the few who navigate here are the Mothmen and Mothwomen (to be cisgender about things) who hop aboard the phototaxis before realizing they should have taken an Uber.

I am okay with that.