Each spring, newly emerged Agrotis infusa leave breeding grounds on the inland plains of south-eastern Australia and fly south and east to the Australian Alps. There they enter caves and rock crevices, packing onto the walls at very high densities, and spend the summer in aestivation before returning to breed and die. The route can exceed a thousand kilometres, and no individual has made it before.
Laboratory work using a tethered flight simulator tested how they hold a bearing at night. Moths given a natural magnetic field together with visual landmarks flew consistently in their seasonally appropriate direction. When the magnetic field was rotated so that it conflicted with the visual scene, the moths became disoriented rather than following either cue, which indicates the two are used together rather than one overriding the other.
The species has declined sharply. Cave counts collapsed during drought years around 2017 to 2019, and the IUCN listed it as Endangered in 2021. The consequences reach beyond the moth, because the mountain pygmy-possum depends on arriving moths to fatten after hibernation.