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Insects Don’t Swarm at LED Lights (www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/science@lemmy.ml
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[–] 2 points 1 day ago* (2 children)

That's not my experience. I have a nifty one AAA battery LED light, and when it's dark and warm out, and I turn it on, immediately mosquitos come to me. It's so irritating, sometimes I just don't turn it on, and I keep it off when entering my house, to avoid dragging the insects with me inside the house.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    The linked article is being changed as I type this. So it might come to a different conclusion.

    But to your point: maybe mosquitos come out more when it's dark generally, which correlates with you turning on the light. But the mosquitos are attracted to the CO2 in your breath (which they are) and not the light.

    But my experience is that I have less bugs (maybe mosquitos) when I use the red light on my headlamp instead of white.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago*

    What you say sounds reasonable. It would take a year to determine the actual correlations up to a scientific standard, using proper experiments with controls, etc.

    But I still feel the LED light I have helps them at night, even if they could get a bead on me without it too.

    There could be all sorts of variables: which species of mosquito? Which LED lights? Which weather? Maybe some LEDs are invisible to some mosquitos, and some increase my visibility by 5%. Then, if the weather makes the rosquitos lethargic, 5% is not able to clear a threshold of increased swarming action, but when they are hungry and warmed up, 5% difference in their sense impressions is enough to make the mosquitos go bonkers. The possibility space is too large, which is why I am not a scientist. I don't have the stamina to do 100's of experiments to sort this out to a high standard.

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