US researchers have developed an inexpensive device that will allow them to study the behavior and activity of insects, the largest group of organisms on the planet. With species inhabiting every continent, including Antarctica, scientists know very little about when most insects are awake and active, which is especially true of nocturnal species that fly under the obscuring veil of darkness.
"We study butterflies, bees and ants because we can see them, but there are hundreds of thousands of nocturnal insects out there, all of which have been nearly impossible to track until now,” Akito Kawahara, curator of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said in a study published February 24.
