Moths Mimic Sounds To Survive

I found this article to be somewhat appropriate when related to our previous classroom material. The research for this experiment was conducted by Jesse Barber, a doctoral student in biology at Wake Forest and was co-authored by William E. Connor professor of biology at Wake Forest.

This article discussed the tiger moth's ability to use acoustic mimicry as a defense strategy. The tiger moths main predator is the bat. These bats much like any other use a form of sonar echolocation to locate and consume their prey in the dark of night. In order to combat this sonar employed by the bats, the tiger moth's produce ultrasonic clicks of their own. These clicks are deployed by a paired set of structures called "tymbals" within the moth. In some species of tiger moth's these tymbals are used to make specific sounds that warn the bat of theif bad taste. In the other species of tiger moth's these tymbals are used to make sounds that closely mimic the bats high-frequency sounds.

They found that the moth's that could mimic the bats high-frequency sounds would not be consumed. As a control they used moths of similar size that could not emit ultrasonic frequencies and almost all were captured by the bats. The bats also quickly learned and left the moth's that would warn them of their bad tastes completely alone. The bats that were used for this study were big brown bats and red bats. This study laid a major foundation for species to species acoustic mimicry for survival purposes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070529211003.htm

Posted by Francis Rogers