Reading and getting stunned. Here’s an update to my previous post about bats. So, it is known that they hunt nocturnal moths and butterflies, what in Russian is called “moth”. And a moth, as we have all seen many times, like butterflies, has scales on its wings, making it so terry. By the way, the structure of these scales creates colors through interference and diffraction, the pigments of which are completely absent in the insect, like blue.
It turns out that these scales are not just there but serve as protection against bats. Firstly, they absorb ultrasonic waves and reflect back a small part, which partially hides the insect from the “radar”.
Moreover, half of the scale-winged creatures have ears, which detect the bat much earlier than it can “see” them with its radar. And they make a getaway sooner.
But there’s an even cooler tool in the tiger moth. It has a mechanism that jams the radar. Special hammers, which it uses to create ultrasonic disturbances and confuse the bat. Experiments were conducted playing recordings, and the bats “broke down”. Whereas the Luna Moth doesn’t have these hammers, nor does it have ears or even a mouth, but with its tail, they create an echo, which also confuses the bat. An experiment was conducted with a moth with a damaged tail – it was eaten instantly, while healthy ones manage to disturb the bat’s flight so they don’t get caught. It’s definitely the tail doing it, but the physics of it all remains a mystery.
Check out the first post if you haven’t already
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 