Why bother being
nocturnal? Being active only at night makes it much harder to see what you're doing, and while it's possible to develop good night vision to minimise the problem, this is evolutionary costly. Well, if you're a herbivore, the advantage of being active at night is that it's much easier to hide from predators, since, they, too, would have to evolve good night vision to find you. And, if you're a predator, the advantage is that at least some of your competitors won't be around at night, allowing you to snack on nocturnal herbivores and not have to share your food supply.
But this, of course, cuts both ways. For example, while darkness hides you from predators, it also makes it
more difficult to spot predators coming if they have seen you. As so often, this leads to a balance, and different species taking advantage of different points on the continuum of possible behaviours.
We can see some of the effects of this in how animals respond to different levels of darkness. Not all nights are equal, after all. The most predictable change is in the amount of moonlight, with the night of a full moon being considerably brighter than a night without a visible moon. Somewhat less predictably, of course, there's the weather, unless, perhaps, you live in a desert where overcast skies are fairly unlikely. So, if you're a nocturnal herbivore, should you be more active on the night of a full moon, or less?