3 ms·
You can often trigger this dodging reflex in moths with a simple broadband ultrasound generator: quick jingling a keychain of metal keys. A nearby moth will dro
by driggs 4y ago
You can often trigger this dodging reflex in moths with a simple broadband ultrasound generator: quick jingling a keychain of metal keys. A nearby moth will drop suddenly when it detects the "echolocation pulse" with its tympanic membrane.
The counter-counter-evolutionary strategy of moth-specialist bats is to "whisper", and bats of the genus Corynorhinus for example have comically large ears so that they can echolocate at very low amplitude in "stealth mode", avoiding detection by moths until the very final approach phase.
I'm not familiar with moths producing an active "jamming" signal, and have a hard time believing it'd be very successful given that bats often produce echolocation signals as loud as 110dB (though they drop amplitude and refine frequencies as distance to a target decreases), but my experience is exclusively with US bats.
Another problem with announcing that you're searching for and homing in on food at 110dB is that any other bats nearby can hear as well. I've recorded Tadarida producing a sinusoidal FM jamming signal to try and prevent a competitor from success.
- h2odragon 4y agoJust from listening to the bats; it sounds to me like they spend at least as much time cussing at each other as they do pinging. I wonder how much information the bats gather from others' ping calls and also from the "other chatter" a crowd of bats produces.
- riversflow 4y agoInteresting, this reminded me of something I watched long ago about bat-moth interactions. According to this documentary[1], the Tiger moth has it's own "siren" that "warns bats that it is poisonous", however upon further research I came across this article[2] which claims that it is indeed sonar jamming. Thought I'd share. aside: it's amazing that I could find Alien Empire online. [1]https://archive.org/details/AlienEmpireBattlezoneMetropolis https://archive.org/details/AlienEmpireBattlezoneMetropolis (the bat-moth part is just after 13:00) [2]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sonar-jamming-tiger-moths-bats-echolocation-defense/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sonar-jamming-tig...