Some moths are built to essentially cancel sound – and it’s a pretty effective defense mechanism against bats and echolocation. Plus: a heart-shaped work of art made by bees!
Deaf moths evolved noise-cancelling scales to evade predators (Phys.org)
Bees Create Heart-Shaped Hive When There Aren’t Frames Up to Guide Them (My Modern Met)
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There’s a report on Phys.org about moths that can essentially cancel sound.
They’re not doing this to compete with our high-end headphones. It’s a defense mechanism against bats, who would otherwise eat them.
Bats hunt by using echolocation. They send out ultrasonic calls and use them as a kind of sonar to find where insects are and catch them.
Some insects are able to hear these extremely high-frequency sounds, which means they know when bats are nearby and can try to avoid them.
But many moth species can’t hear at all. So how do they protect themselves against bats?
Scientists at the University of Bristol studied these insects and found that they have scales on their thoraxes that are structured in a way that actually absorbs sound.
They found that these scales can absorb 85 percent of the sounds bats make when they’re hunting, making it harder for the predators to sense them, and helping them survive.
I can believe it. They’re using the same kind of setup I’ve got in the studio where I recording the show, and I haven’t had any bats in here since I started.
One more story about insects before we go, this one about bees.
Beehives take whatever shape they can in whatever space beekeepers (or the world around them) offer up.
But left to their own devices, bees make their hives into some very beautiful shapes.
Like a hive showcased by the National Trust in the UK, which if you look closely, has the shape of a heart in the middle of the honeycomb.
