When chosing your next bug zapper.

Facinating. The articles mention that heat may be the main factor in artificial lights attracting insects, but the paper itself also mentions that UV radiation may be a large factor in the difference between LED and CFL globes, with heat only being used as an explaination for the high bug attraction of the UV-low filament globes.

It may be worth noting that the researchers performed tests away from any structures, while in common use an occupied building with the light inside or nearby may already be sufficiently heated for the purpose of comfort, such that the significance of the heat from a filament light bulb in attracting insects is less significant than when it's in the middle of a field.

It would have been interesting if they'd also tested a halogen light bulb, as these produce both lots of heat, and much larger amounts of UV radiation than the other light bulb types tested. Particularly if the now common UV blocking glass is not used.

Data paid for and massaged by a company selling LED lighting solutions. Obviously the person who wrote "As lighting manufacturers, we welcome that a link between LED lights and low attraction to insects has been proven." hasn't worn a powerful LED headlamp on a night when there are lots of flying insects around. I almost have to wear safety glasses some times as they kamikaze their way down the light beam in a powered dive...

Aus got mostly Nips in the war - on my hemisphere the critters have mostly Swastikas................

An old solar garden light bug zapper I autopsied had blue LEDs, there were some insects stuck to the wire grid - I put the low death toll down to the limited time the inverter could run on a UK days sunlight.

They did cite other studies indicating the attraction of bugs to UV light, which LED globes do produce less of. I think they also mentioned other tests between CFL and LED globes (one in NZ, if I remember correctly from my breif look yesterday). Given how much brighter many new LED torches are compared to old filament ones it may be that the sheer quantity of light is making up for it's less bug-attractive nature.

I suppose I'm actually in a rather good position to try to replicate the experiment. Maybe one day...

Like the ones on the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber?

Yeah, a solar zapper is a big ask on its own (unless it costs over a hundred quid) without being in a low-sunlight area.

Possibly the most useless (after anything the French stuck wings on) military aircraft ever built.

It was a great terror weapon for spearheading a blitzkrieg, but if they didn't have air superiority the Stuka was a dead easy target.

The Jap zero was an unpleasant surprise for the allies, but for range and manouverability it had pretty much no armor. As soon as allied airforces developed a buddy system to trap them in a turn, the problem was substantially neutralised.

Whenever I look at the output spectrum of a 'white' LED, I see this big spike just at the top of the violet end. That is what drives the phosphor producing the white light. If insects are attracted to near-UV, that is exactly the right place.

And judging with my experience with head torches while camping, I would say LEDs are worse than filament lamps for attracting insects, of course the total light output is also a factor, as has already been mentioned.

AFAIK: the usual white LEDs are blue with a yellow phosphor, I've heard rumours about UV LEDs with a white phosphor that are claimed to be more efficient.