Male moths optimally balance take-off thoracic temperature and warm-up duration to reach a pheromone source quickly.

Animal activities, such as foraging and reproduction, are constrained by decisions about how to allocate energy and time efficiently. Overall, male moths invest less in reproduction than females, but they are thought to engage in a scramble competition for access to females that advertise readiness to mate by releasing sexual pheromones. However, before male moths can follow the pheromone, they often need to heat their flight muscles by shivering to produce sufficient power for sustained flight. Here, we show that