bats

Their fuzz works like an acoustic panel to cut down the noise volume from their movements. From ScienceDaily: While some moths have evolved ears that detect the ultrasonic calls of bats, many types of moths remain deaf. In those moths, Neil has found that the insects developed types of “stealth coating” that serve as acoustic camouflage to evade hungry bats. Neil will describe his work during the Acoustical Society of America’s 176th Meeting, held in conjunction with the Canadian Acoustical Association’s 2018 Acoustics Week, Nov. 5-9 at the Victoria Conference Centre in Victoria, Canada. In his presentation, Neil will focus on how fur on a moth’s thorax and wing joints provide acoustic stealth by reducing the echoes of these body Read More ›

Which now seem to serve an as-yet-unknown function in the bat. From ScienceDaily: Some 18 million years ago, an ancestor of mouse-eared bats “stole” genetic material from an ancient virus related to Bola. The swiped genetic sequence — a gene called VP35 — has remained largely intact in the bats despite the passage of time, with few changes since it was co-opted, a new study finds. The research also sheds light on the gene’s possible function in bats, suggesting that it may play a role in regulating the immune system’s response to threats. “We’re using a multidisciplinary approach to understand the evolution, structure and function of a viral gene co-opted by a mammal,” says Derek J. Taylor, PhD, an evolutionary biologist at Read More ›