Study: Hawk moths use sonar jamming genitals in fight against bats
by KADHIM SHUBBER
Hawk moths may be jamming bat sonar signals by rubbing their genitals.
The behaviour, reported in Biology Letters on 3 July, creates an ultrasonic noise that could be used to scare off an attacking bat and to jam the bat's sonar.
Radar jamming is a common tool in human warfare, clearing the way for aircraft to bomb enemy targets without detection. By flooding the radar frequency with noise, an attacker can render radar useless. A radar operator can resist by switching frequencies randomly, but modern attack techniques, reported to have been used by Israel during a 2007 attack on Syria, bypasses traditional "jamming" altogether and straight-up hacks the enemy radar.
A similar arms race has been going on in the natural world between bats, which rely on ultrasonic echolocation -- or sonar -- to "see", and some species of moths, which have developed special bat-detecting ears and, as this latest study shows, techniques to counter a bat's sonar.
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http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-07/04/anti-bat-sonar
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