Natural History Museum turning moths gay to save exhibits

London’s Natural History Museum is taking rather a novel approach to its insect problem in an attempt to preserve its exhibits: turning moths gay.

After battling a cloth-eating moth infestation for the last four years, museum scientists are now trying to trick the male moths into mating with each other in an attempt to stop them reproducing.

“It’s called the Pheromone Destruction System and in simplistic terms, it makes male moths attracted to other male moths,” the museum’s quarantine facility manager, Armando Mendex, tod the Telegraph.

Staff have set up traps in areas around the museum with female moth pheromone in them. The traps are designed to attract male moths, who get covered in the female pheromone, in turn attracting other males who then try to mate with them, to no avail.

“They only live for a couple of weeks and during that time there is only a small window in which they can reproduce,” Mr Mendex added. If they spend this unknowingly attempting to attract and fertilise male moths, then it reduces the offspring we are up against.”

Since the new system was introduced, the museum has seen the number of moths fall by nearly 50 per cent.