Continued source level reduction during attack in the low-amplitude bat Barbastella barbastellus prevents moth evasive flight ...

• Main Authors: Lewanzik, Daniel, Goerlitz, Holger R., MacMillan, Heath
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2018
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Barbastella barbastellus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13451340; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13451340

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Abstract Ears evolved independently in many insect taxa due to the selection pressure of echolocating bats. Eared moths perform evasive flight manoeuvres upon hearing approaching bats, thereby substantially increasing survival probability. Accordingly, eared moths constitute only a minor portion of many bats' diets. In contrast, the barbastelle bat Barbastella barbastellus almost exclusively feeds on eared moths by emitting low‐amplitude stealth echolocation calls that are undetectable by distant moths. While closing in on the prey, however, the calls might become audible. We thus hypothesised that barbastelle bats lower the source level of their calls even further while closing in, such that the level at the moth's ear remains below the moth's hearing threshold and the moth fails to elicit its evasive manoeuvre. We tested these hypotheses by offering tethered moths to barbastelle bats in the wild and in captivity. We reconstructed the bats' ...