Acoustic Aposematism and Evasive Action in Select Chemically Defended Arctiine (Lepidoptera: Erebidae) Species: Nonchalant or Not?

ABSTRACT: Tiger moths (Erebidae: Arctiinae) have experienced intense selective pressure from echolocating, insectivorous bats for over 65 million years. One outcome has been the evolution of acoustic signals that advertise the presence of toxins sequestered from the moths' larval host plants, i.e. acoustic aposematism. Little is known about the effectiveness of tiger moth anti-bat sounds in their natural environments. We used multiple infrared cameras to reconstruct bat-moth interactions in three-dimensional (3-D) space to examine how functional sound-producing organs called tymbals affect predation of two chemically defended tiger moth species: Pygarctia roseicapitis (Arctiini) and Cisthene martini (Lithosiini). P. roseicapitis and C. martini with intact tymbals were 1.8 and 1.6 times less likely t

SUBMITTER: Dowdy NJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4838332 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature