Nocturnal anti-predator adaptations in eared and earless Nearctic Lepidoptera

Amanda R. Soutar and James H. Fullard

Behavioral Ecology, 2004, vol. 15, issue 6, 1016-1022

Abstract: Nocturnal flight exposes insects to selection pressures that include reduced light and the hunting behavior of insectivorous bats. Using a phylogenetically based selection of wild moths collected from a Nearctic site, we report that earless species fly less throughout the night than eared species. This supports the hypothesis that this behavior has evolved as a passive defense against the transient attacks of aerially foraging bats in insects that do not possess long-range auditory detection abilities. We measured the eyesize of a selection of moths whose 24-h flight activities are known and confirm that nocturnal lifestyle results in larger eyes. With the exception of hawkmoths, there is no eyesize difference between eared and earless moths, suggesting that earless moths do not preferentially use vision to detect the approach of bats. Copyright 2004.

Keywords: auditory state; bats; defense; eyesize; flight; moths (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arh103 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:15:y:2004:i:6:p:1016-1022

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().