Premium
The use of video equipment to record in three dimensions the flight trajectories of Heliothis armigera and other moths at night
Author(s) -
RILEY J. R.,
SMITH A. D.,
BETTANY B. W.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
physiological entomology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1365-3032
pISSN - 0307-6962
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3032.1990.tb00494.x
Subject(s) - biology , climbing , altitude (triangle) , nocturnal , crop , ecology , mathematics , geometry
A simple method of recording stereoscopically the behaviour of moths in nocturnal, low‐altitude flight in the field is described. Sample results, showing the flight of Heliothis armigera (Hiibner) and other noctuids at 2–11 m above a crop of pigeon‐pea in India are presented. Flight trajectories, reconstructed in three dimensions, demonstrated that most of the moths flew close to the horizontal, in straight lines, and that their average air (flight) speed was 5.0 ± 1.9 m s ‐1 . There was no evidence of mass climbing flight away from the crop.