At night in the Costa Rican cloud forest, a small team of international scientists switched on a light and waited. Soon, insects big and small descended out of the darkness. Moths with spots like unblinking eyes on each wing. Shiny armored beetles. Flies. Once, even a praying mantis. Each did the same hypnotic, dizzying dance around the bulb as if attached to it with invisible string.
Excitement spread through the group of researchers, even thoughthis phenomenon was not new to them. The difference is they now have cutting-edge technology and high-speed cameras — capable of capturing the fast, frenzied orbits — to map the hard-to-track movements of hundreds of insects and tease out secrets surrounding why they act so strange around light at night.
