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Moths draped in stealth acoustic cloak evade bat sonar

chemistryworld.com

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Re: Moths draped in stealth acoustic cloak evade bat sonar

#31

Post by jussij »

erdewit wrote: post #15
jussij wrote: post #10

The Hawk moth has evolved to emit ultrasonic clicks that jam the bat sonar: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/moths-avoid-capture-... Just more examples of the power of evolution.

According to the story it's not about jamming the sonar but giving of a warning that the moth is toxic. Sort of the acoustic equivalent of bright colors that some toxic animals have.

I stand corrected. As you point out the moth species I quoted uses this 'bad experience' signal as it's sonic defense.

However, this study found:

The moths’ ultrasound production clearly confused the bats, according to researchers, who reported that bats faced with sonar-jamming moths often tried to catch moths from empty air, apparently because the moths’ ultrasound signals had left the bats confused about the actual location of their prey. This kept working over several repetitions of the experiment with the same bats. For the researchers, this confirmed that moths were actually jamming bats’ sonar in order to escape, not just trying to startle them or mimic another, less tasty, moth.

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/05/moths-rub-their-genitals-...

Which obviously goes to show there are many different types of weird an wonderful interactions going on between bats and moths.

Re: Moths draped in stealth acoustic cloak evade bat sonar

#32

Post by meowface »

lemiant wrote: post #26
meowface wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if some of these processes might start out with a kind of genetic anti-resiliency that's selected for. Moths seem to have a wide variety of wing patterns and heavily rely on them for camouflage and mimicry (like when eyes are mimicked). Maybe the genes related to wing surfaces reduced in number over time, making wings more sensitive to mutation and variation. Kind of like increasing the wing learning rate at…

I love that you wrote this. I wrote a very similar whitepaper about meta-evolution (evolving methods to propose better mutations) a few months ago: https://lemiant.github.io/PhilosophyCircle/papers/evolution_...

I was actually about to use the term "meta-evolution" while writing that post, since that's what it seemed like, though I wasn't sure if meta-evolution was already considered just a subset of overall evolution.

Your whitepaper definitely makes a lot of sense to me. Has there been a lot of other research done on this?

Re: Moths draped in stealth acoustic cloak evade bat sonar

#33

Post by RileyJames »

gabereiser wrote: post #30
qzw wrote: post #2

> Holderied says it could be possible to make materials ‘10 times more efficient at absorbing sounds than what we are using in our homes and offices’. Think sound-absorbing wallpaper, not panels, he adds. I would love to have something like that. All these open floor plan offices and open concept homes are loud AF.

After listening to best softies of the 80s for 3 hours from my neighbors walls, yes please. I also play guitar so to have a “jam box” would be great. Like a vocal box where you’re isolated but for really REALLY loud guitars.

That’s a thing, primarily used for recording, but your use case would work.

They’re called isolation boxes, easy enough to DIY build one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFxH9sVe3Ls

Re: Moths draped in stealth acoustic cloak evade bat sonar

#34

Post by gabereiser »

RileyJames wrote: post #33
gabereiser wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After listening to best softies of the 80s for 3 hours from my neighbors walls, yes please. I also play guitar so to have a “jam box” would be great. Like a vocal box where you’re isolated but for really REALLY loud guitars.

That’s a thing, primarily used for recording, but your use case would work. They’re called isolation boxes, easy enough to DIY build one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFxH9sVe3Ls

Yeah, exactly, but I want to be in there with it cranked to 11. I need to build a bigger box.
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