Free-flight encounters between praying mantids (Parasphendale agrionina) and bats (Eptesicus fuscus).
2008
SUMMARY Through staged free-flight encounters between echolocating bats and praying
mantids, we examined the effectiveness of two potential predator-evasion
behaviors mediated by different sensory modalities: (1) power dive responses
triggered by bat echolocation detected by the mantis ultrasound-sensitive
auditory system, and (2) `last-ditch9 maneuvers triggered by bat-generated
wind detected by the mantis cercal system. Hearing mantids escaped more often
than deafened mantids (76% vs 34%, respectively; hearing conveyed 42%
advantage). Hearing mantis escape rates decreased when bat attack sequences
contained very rapid increases in pulse repetition rates (escape rates <40%
for transition slopes >16 p.p.s. 10 ms –1 ; escape rates>
60% for transition slopes –1 ). This
suggests that echolocation attack sequences containing very rapid transitions
(>16 p.p.s. 10 ms –1 ) could circumvent mantis/insect
auditory defenses. However, echolocation attack sequences containing such
transitions occurred in only 15% of the trials. Since mantis
ultrasound-mediated responses are not 100% effective, cercal-mediated evasive
behaviors triggered by bat-generated wind could be beneficial as a
backup/secondary system. Although deafened mantids with functioning cerci did
not escape more often than deafened mantids with deactivated cerci (35%
vs 32%, respectively), bats dropped mantids with functioning cerci
twice as frequently as mantids with deactivated cerci. This latter result was
not statistically reliable due to small sample sizes, since this study was not
designed to fully evaluate this result. It is an interesting observation that
warrants further investigation, however, especially since these dropped
mantids always survived the encounter.
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