Tiger Moths Scare Bats With Ultrasonic Clicks

It’s kinda tough being a moth. Not only do you have to go through the icky process of pupating, but you’re also the favorite food of bats, which use ultrasonic echolocation to swoop down and pounce on you when you’re just trying to have some fun, flapping around a lightbulb.

But one species, Cycnia tenera, which is known to its friends as the Toxic Dogbane Tiger Moth, has evolved special bat-detecting ears that contain neurons sensitive to the frequencies used by the bats for their echolocation clicks. Not only that, but the moth has even worked out how to generate ultrasonic pulses itself, confusing the bat into aborting the attack.

In a recent study, the group put moths in a dark chamber covered with sound insulation, played them the sounds of a bat’s echolocation calls, and recorded their responses with a microphone. The recordings were then analyzed to find out how the moths react to the bats.

Bats issue different types of ultrasonic call when they’re searching for potential prey and when they’ve identified a target and are swooping in for the kill. Both types were played to the moths, which were observed as being able to distinguish between the two. Although initially alarmed by both types of call, the moths habituated to the first relatively quickly compared to the second one.

The moths also emitted their own defensive ultrasonic clicks. These were also produced on hearing both types of bat call, but when the more aggressive calls were played, the clicks increased in intensity and duration.

Original article here.