Tags
#WildWords, attracted to light, British insects, Chironomidae species, non-biting midge, phototaxis, repelled by light, wild words
Phototaxis: noun; biology; the bodily movement of a motile organism in response to light, either towards the source of light (positive phototaxis) or away from it (negative phototaxis) (Oxford Dictionary).
I hadn’t realised that some creatures suffer from negative phototaxis but, apparently, cockroaches are repelled by light – I thought they were just scurrying away from the humans who want to kill them. The example of positive phototaxis (i.e. an attraction to a light source) that immediately springs to mind is the moth – I’m sure we’ve all noticed them fluttering around a bright light at night – though there are many other examples. One of these is the insect in my photos: it’s one of the large family of non-biting midges (Chironomidae species). I found perhaps 30 of them on a wall near a street light recently.
