Re: Effects of light on moth behavior

Hi David-

Any decent book on entomology should have something on what you're looking for. A good general textbook on Entomology is "The Science of Entomology", by William Romoser and John Stoffolano Jr. (1994 (3^rd edition) William C. Brown Publishers, Dubuque). It is the first book I go to on things entomological.

There's been a lot of work on taxes [singular: taxis] (which is defined as directed responses in relation to a stimulus) in insects, and a lot of work on phototaxis (which is a stimulus towards light) in particular. A few classic references that might help are:

I don't know what grade/level of study you are at, so I'd better warn you that those won't be available at your neighbourhood public library- you'll find them in a university library, though. I'd especially recommend Jander (1963) because he deals with what is termed "turning tendency", which is the tendency to correct angular deviations from (or away from) a stimulus; that sounds kind of like what you're interested in.

You can also look on the internet at your favorite search portal- searching under the term "phototaxis" will get you a lot of hits. Click here for results courtesy of Yahoo. I would, however, caution you that the world wide web is nowhere near as good as a book- anyone can post anything they like to web, so you should always view information from the web as suspect and requiring verification.

Good Luck!

Rob Campbell, MAD Scientist