2023-06-27
Aaron J. Corcoran, Jesse R. Barber, William E. Conner [CBC09].
Bats use echolocation to pinpoint airborne insects in darkness. Some bugs do other things. Tiger moths click ultrasonically in response to attacking bats. Three possible reasons: startle, warning, and jamming. Clicking moths are juicy, so bad warning. Bats aren’t startled long. Past studies used low duty cycle moths, and didn’t find jamming. This study uses high duty cycle moths. Sixteen moths are prepared: four that click, four that don’t, and eight different ones that don’t. Bats get one minute or five swoops.
After many trials, all but one bat seemed to like to eat these moths. They didn’t need to learn to be bad at catching them with prior experience, and bats didn’t get good at catching them. The bats don’t mind the clicks and will re-attack within a second. The bats moved through phases of their attacks differently with the sounds, and didn’t get better with it as you would expect if they were startled.
Shockingly small sample size, very interesting. I’d like to see just playing the clicks on identical moths to see if that confused the bats.