(Phys.org) —The way in which male moths locate females flying hundreds of meters away has long been a mystery to scientists.
Researchers know the moths use pheromones to locate their mates. Yet when these chemical odors are widely dispersed in a windy, turbulent atmosphere, the insects still manage to fly in the right direction over hundreds of meters with only random puffs of their mates' pheromones spaced tens of seconds apart to guide them.
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| Moths from the species Bombyx mori were used for the study |
"The male moths are flying toward females integrating all of this information along the way and somehow getting to them," said Massimo Vergassola, a professor of physics at UC San Diego. "French naturalists reported this behavior over a century ago and it has continued to be a puzzle to entomologists, neuroscientists and physicists."
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