Navigation jamming of flies etc..

From: Anders Espef\dlt (v3andesp@ulmo.stud.slu.se)
Date: Tue Apr 22 1997 - 12:40:26 PDT


Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 21:40:26 +0200
From: v3andesp@ulmo.stud.slu.se (Anders Espef\dlt)
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg1584$foo@default>
Subject: Navigation jamming of flies etc..

In cp digest 1056 Laurent wrote:

>Everyone knows how the bugs are attracted by lamps at night.
>Put your droseras or pings under a lamp. When the insects hit the lamp,=
 they
>are burned and think they are attacked by something. Their defense=
 strategy
>is to loose altitude as soon as possible to escape or to simulate their=
 death,
>maybe ? In anyway, they fall rightly to the soil... and your sticky=
 plants.

Hello, it=B4s me again.
  I forgot to say that I think (opinion, not proven fact) that the flies
fall onto the soil after they hit the light is because the are so severely
burnt and/or shocked by the heat that they lose control and lose altitude
and/or fall to the ground.
   It=B4s a fact that some insects escape by loosing altitude when they are
struck by sonar impulses from insectivourus bats, but I think that it=B4s a
specific behaviour triggered by the sound and that it will not be activated
by a non-specific noxious stimuli like heat and/or pain. But if you have any
other opinion, let me know.
  I also hope that the statement "Everyone knows how the bugs are attracted
by lamps at night.", with emphasis on "how", is even more correct now.=20

   Best regards,
      Anders Espefalt, Student of Veterinary Medicine (not entomology)
      v3andesp@ulmo.stud.slu.se

  Ps I send a special hello to Laurent, an insect interested cp:er. Are
there more?



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