The Secret Lives of Moths

The Secret Lives of Moths

It’s an hour past sunset, and I’m alone atop a mountain in Southern California, surrounded by darkness. I’m fixated on a 5-gallon bucket, a halo of eerie blue light emanating from the top. A swarm of moths frantically pursues the light, completely entrancing me. This isn’t some odd form of meditation—I’m an ecologist who studies pollinators. Many of these moths (around 60 percent of them, I will later discover) are carrying tiny pollen grains on…