Meeting Abstract

61.1  Saturday, Jan. 5  Acoustic mimicry in a predator-prey interaction BARBER, Jesse/R; Wake Forest University barber.jesse@gmail.com

When a moth takes to the air in search of a mate or a hostplant upon which to lay its eggs, it does so at great risk; the night sky is not safe. It is full of insectivorous bats, many of which specialize on moths. One group of moths, the Arctiidae, answers the echolocation pursuit of bats with ultrasonic clicks broadcast from bilateral metathoracic sound-producing structures called tymbals. These sounds may startle, jam, or warn attacking bats. Recent work confirmed one critical assumption of the warning model: na�ve big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) failed to learn to avoid chemically protected moths unless those moths also provided an acoustic warning. This defensive strategy is clearly open to mimicry. To test acoustic mimicry two species of sound-producing tiger moths were offered successively to na�ve, free-flying red (Lasiurus borealis) and big brown bats. All bats quickly learned to avoid the noxious tiger moth offered to them first, associating the warning sounds with bad taste confirming acoustic aposematism. They then avoided the second sound-producing species regardless of whether it was chemically protected or not, verifying both M�llerian and Batesian mimicry in the acoustic modality. A subset of the red bats subsequently discovered the palatability of the Batesian mimic, demonstrating the powerful selective force these predators exert on mimetic resemblance. I extend these findings by describing the 3D kinematic and bioacoustic behavior of these same bats as they learn to deal with a noxious model tiger moth and subsequently avoid acoustic mimics. Given these results acoustic mimicry complexes are likely common components of the natural world.