What do fireflies do when their potential predator, the bat, does not notice the well-known warning flashes they typically use? They take care to attract his attention with the help of his strong sense – the sonar. A team of researchers set out to study bats and discovered quite by chance an extraordinary defense mechanism of fireflies, which even they themselves are unable to hear.
Catch the attention of the predator
A new study from Tel Aviv University reveals for the first time a possible defense mechanism that the fireflies have developed against the bats that threaten to devour them. According to the study, the fireflies produce powerful ultrasonic sounds – sound waves that the human ear and even that of the firefly are unable to hear. Researchers speculate that these sounds deter bats from poisonous fireflies, and serve as a kind of “musical armor” of fireflies against their predators.
The study was led by Prof. Yossi Yuval, head of the Purple School of Neuroscience, and the School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Zoology at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, and in collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion and the University VAST In Vietnam. The study was published in the journal iScience.
Hearing but not hearing
The fireflies are known for their unusual flashing lights, an action that serves them as a call for the purpose of mating and also as a warning sign to potential predators from the poison they carry in their bodies. But because everything has advantages and disadvantages – this means of marking is also considered the weak point of fireflies, for the simple reason that it makes them an easy target to identify. Bats are considered among the most common potential predators of fireflies, and since some have poor eyesight – the light flicker of fireflies as a means of protection becomes ineffective. This understanding led the researchers to examine whether the illuminating beetle uses additional defense mechanisms.
It turns out that the idea for the study came up by chance, during another study that followed the hearing skills of the bats. “We were walking around in a tropical forest in Vietnam, with microphones capable of recording the high frequencies of the bats, when we suddenly detected unfamiliar sounds at similar frequencies from the direction of the fireflies,” says Prof. Yuval.
Were accidentally caught on a bat recording. Powerful ultrasonic sounds of fireflies
“After an in-depth study and high-speed video use, we realized that the fireflies’ sounds are produced by their wing motion, and that it is a frequency that the fireflies themselves cannot hear. The study.
Following the accidental discovery, the team of researchers in Prof. Yuval’s laboratory examined three different species of fireflies that are common in Vietnam (Sclerotia Curtos Luciola,) And another Israeli species of fireflies (Lampyroidea). They discovered that all fireflies produce the unique ultrasonic sounds and that they cannot hear them.
Personal musical warning?
Can it be determined that fireflies have developed a unique defense mechanism specifically for bats? Prof. Yuval emphasizes that the claim has not been proven in the study, but the fact that the fireflies do not hear the sounds while the bats do, and that they can locate the fireflies through them – are considered convincing reasons.
“The very detection of ultrasonic sounds in fireflies is an important addition to the field of research dealing with predatory prey in animals,” Kriboruchko adds, concluding. “Our discovery of the ‘musical battle’ that fireflies and bats are waging may be an opening for further research in the field and for the discovery of a new defense mechanism that animals have developed against predators.”