When love is in the air for certain moth species, the female secretes a pheromone to signal that sheâs ready to make little moths. An interested male will approach and âsingâ her a courtship song composed of a series of ultrasonic pulses.
Some types of moth use a âtrueâ song that woos the female into giving the male access to her genitalia. Some other species, meanwhile, lie to get sex. They produce a deceptive song that mimics the echolocation calls of a hunting bat. The female, thinking thereâs a predator around, freezes, which allows the male to mate with her even if sheâs not interested in him.
Now, scientists in Japan have found a moth that combines the two types, and makes a love song and a lie rolled into one. The yellow peach mothâs courtship song is a made up of a few short pulses followed by a longer one. The long pulse, the researchers found, is attractive to females and hearing it causes them to get into their mating position, like a âtrueâ courtship song. The short pulses are similar to the deceptive songs, and sound, to a moth, like the hunting calls of bats.Â
The peach moth isnât trying to frighten his potential mate like the other liars, though. His deception is aimed at his competition. The researchers found that the short pulses didnât really affect the female moths. When they heard it, they didnât move into a mating position, and didnât freeze or change their behavior in other ways, either. When other males flitting about heard the short pulses, however, they changed their flight patterns and stopped following the trail of the femalesâ pheromonesâthe same way they did when they heard a recording of a hunting bat.
The peach mothâs courtship song kills two birds with one stone. The short, bat-like pulses scare off other males so that the first one who reaches a female and starts singing doesnât have to deal with any competitors. With the rival suitors scrambling for safety instead of heading towards the female, the crooning moth has her to himself, and the long pulse that ends his song put her in the mood for love.
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