Moths in the News: A moth fools its predators!
This is another article from more than 5 years ago, but it's a really interesting one. Apparently there is at least one species of moth that is capable of confusing the bats that hunt them by emitting very fast clicking noises. The bats use echolocation to find their prey and the clicking basically obscures their echolocation. I like bats, but I gotta love the fact that this species of moth has evolved to evade capture. That is a cool adaptation indeed!
To top it all off, this is a really attractive tiger moth from the Erebidae family, Bertholdia trigona. See the profile for this species on Moth Photographer's Group, iNaturalist, and Bugguide. Maybe we need to take a field trip to New Mexico to find one of these little beauties!
I've gotta think there are probably more moths out there with this capability, or other interesting capabilities to avoid predation. They just need more study.
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