If they weren’t eerie enough, world’s spookiest moth flies dead-straight | angus_dalton
The number of insects that embark on global journeys dwarfs that of migrating mammals and birds, yet we understand little about the world-sweeping movements of tiny invertebrates.
Menz’s study, with the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, was a world-first attempt at live-tracking a nocturnal insect by glueing a tiny tag to the bodies of death’s-head hawkmoths and following their movement - in real-time, and while airborne - across Germany. “It is really quite incredible. They can hold these very straight tracks and actually maintain them over quite long distances. People [thought] insect migration was really very much just driven by winds.”Myles said the navigation tactics of the moths were akin to birds. On a strong tailwind, the moths flew higher and slower, allowing the winds to propel them forward.