Night

In arid environments like deserts, plants evolved to be more active at night, with many gathering carbon dioxide overnight for daytime photosynthesis.

Theft, fights, murders, taboo sexual activities, and accidental deaths all became more frequent due in part to reduced visibility.

The folklore of many cultures contains "creatures of the night", including werewolves, witches, ghosts, and goblins, reflecting societal fears and anxieties.

[20] Moonlight, starlight, airglow, and light pollution can dimly illuminate the nighttime, with their diffuse aspects being termed skyglow.

[49] Nocturnal insects navigate using moonlight, lunar phases, infrared vision, the position of the stars, and the Earth's magnetic field.

[58] Dark-sky advocate Paul Bogard described the unnatural migration of night-flying insects from the unlit Nevada desert into Las Vegas as "like sparkling confetti floating in the beam's white column".

[60] Echolocation allows an animal to navigate with their sense of hearing by emitting sounds and listening for the time it takes them to bounce back.

The word "night-mare" originally referred to nocturnal demons that were believed to assail sleeping dreamers, like the incubus (male) or succubus (female).

[79] When the temperature drops, the pores open to allow the cacti to store carbon dioxide for photosynthesis the next day, a process known as crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM).

Thieves would trip pedestrians with ropes laid across streets and dismount horse riders using long poles extended from the roadside shadows.

"[104] In Ottoman Istanbul, the royal palaces shifted to projecting nocturnal power through large parties lit by lanterns, candles, and fireworks.

[107] The night has long been a time of increased sexual activity, especially in taboo forms such as premarital, extramarital, gay, and lesbian sex.

Some families took precautions to prevent unintended pregnancies, like sleeping in the same room, laying a large wooden board between the couple, or pulling a single stocking over both of their daughter's legs.

[116] Young adults, the urban poor, prostitutes, and thieves benefited from the anonymity of darkness and frequently smashed the new lanterns.

[120] Daytime routines were further pushed back into the night by the electric light bulb—invented in the late 19th century—and the widespread usage of newer timekeeping devices like watches.

[127] Unrelated cultures share a myth of a star-covered sky goddess who arches over the planet after sunset, like Citlālicue, the Aztec personification of the Milky Way.

[137] In Jewish culture and mysticism, the demon Lilith embodies the emotional reactions to darkness, including terror, lust, and liberation.

[141] In the sixteenth century, Swiss theologian Ludwig Lavater began attempting to explain reported spirits as mistakes, deceit, or the work of demons.

[143][144] Many times in the night season, there have been certain spirits heard softly going or spitting or groaning, who being asked what they were have made answer that they were the souls of this or that man and that they now endure extreme torments.

[145]In folklore, nocturnal preternatural beings like goblins, fairies, werewolves, pucks, brownies, banshees, and boggarts have overlapping but non-synonymous definitions.

[147][148] In West Africa and among the African diaspora, there is a widespread tradition of a type of vampire who removes their human skin at night and travels as a blood-sucking ball of light.

Nightlife, sometimes referred to as "the night-time economy", is a range of entertainment available and generally more popular from the late evening into the early morning.

[154][155] It has traditionally included venues such as pubs, bars, nightclubs, live music, concerts, cabarets, theaters, hookah lounges, cinemas, and shows.

David Grazian cites as examples the development of beat poetry, musical styles including bebop, urban blues, and early rock, and the importance of nightlife for the development of the gay rights movement in the United States kicked off by the riots at the Stonewall Inn nightclub in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan, New York City.

[162] Urban renewal policies have increased the available possibilities for nighttime consumers and decreased the non-commercial nocturnal activities outside of sanctioned festivals and concerts.

In the play, night is a time of disorder and confusion that allows Odysseus to sneak into the Trojan camp and kill King Rhesus of Thrace.

As light decreases towards total darkness, the human eye has more scotopic vision, relying more on rod cells and being less able to perceive color.

This style, called cloisonné after the metalworking technique that embedded glass between dark lines of wire, was adopted by other painters like Paul Gauguin.

Nayikas, depictions of women seeking romantic love, were a common subject and often included night as the setting for romance and peril.

[199] In pieces like One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, Hiroshige developed techniques to represent shadow and nocturnal light that became widespread in Japanese Meiji-era art.