A Little Moth Mystery.

A couple of nights ago I was sitting at my desk idly contemplating the advanced gibbous moon. It was holding station in a clear southern sky beyond the un-curtained window, and a thought occurred to me. Where are the moths?

Moths are attracted to light, are they not? If you leave a window open in a lighted room in the summer, your living space soon plays host to a bevy of lepidopteran visitors dancing around the bulb and tapping against the light shade. And if the window’s closed, the same dancers flit desperately hither and thither banging into the glass.

So why in the summer don’t we see countless moths heading off in the direction of the moon? Could it be that they have sufficient sentience to realise that the moon is a little beyond their flying range?