BATS may use “stealth” tactics to fool moths into thinking they’re still a safe distance away, when in fact they’re moving in for the kill.
As a hunting bat approaches its quarry, its ultrasound pulses get shorter, higher and fainter. Researchers had thought this was to avoid potentially deafening echoes, but James Fullard’s team at the University of Toronto have a different explanation.
The team recorded attack calls from an Eptesicus fuscus bat by training it to attack a microphone. They then played these “moth’s-ear perspective” calls to other moths while recording the activity of one of their auditory neurons.…
