there's a battle going on
the moths best known predators scores
again
it's a one-sided fight but not for
everyone
some moths have a secret weapon
and its evolution is revealing a new
story about when butterflies left the
dark side to become creatures of the
light
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helps a lot thank you a group of
researchers are on a quest to solve an
enduring scientific mystery
why did moths evolve into butterflies
they're in garongosa national park a
roughly 4 000 square kilometer expanse
of wilderness in the southern african
country of mozambique
it's a biodiversity hot spot
many charismatic megafauna live here but
it's the little ones they're looking for
so far scientists know that at least 236
species of butterfly and moth live in
the park
akito kawahara of the florida museum of
natural history is leading the
expedition
he wants to find out how butterflies
became what they are now
scientists already know that butterflies
evolved from moths but what
environmental factors were at play for
this extraordinary change to take place
aquito is already considering one theory
that they flew to the light to escape
nocturnal dangers
knowing about moth evolution is key to
understanding what happened
the first moths came onto the scene
between 250 and 300 million years ago in
the carboniferous period
it was swampy the moths were tiny and
they survived by sucking up sweet
excretions from ferns
they became an incredibly diverse group
today there are around one hundred and
sixty thousand different species of moth
compared to seventeen thousand five
hundred species of butterfly
they were the first of the lepidoptera
family to play an important role in
pollination
moths became indispensable to night
blooming flowers
they evolved together
but not all moths work the night shift
the hummingbird hawk moth is a daytime
pollinator it acts looks and sounds just
like a hummingbird it evolved the same
traits to thrive in similar environments
the hummingbird hawk moth has a
proboscis almost as long as its body
designed to access hard-to-reach nectar
deep inside flowers just like a
hummingbird's beak
the disguise comes with another
advantage birds are major predators
mimicking the enemy is a great way to
survive the day
in the night skies of garongosa national
park there's another ingenious moth
survival strategy at work
bat acoustics expert jessie barber from
boise state university joins akito and
his team to record a battle between bats
and moths
the scientists set up sensitive
equipment to detect all the night sounds
imperceptible to human ears bats aren't
the only ones sending signals here
bat vs moth doesn't seem like a fair
battle
bats have an advanced weapon system
which they developed around 50 million
years ago echolocation
this sinister gaping mouth emits high
pitched sounds from the larynx that
bounce off objects in the environment
the returning sound waves accurately
locate prey
at speeds of around 150 kilometers per
hour the bat zooms in to scoop up the
moth in its wing membrane
the microphones pick up other strange
sounds
they're coming from some of the moths
and they're pitched at the same high
frequency that the bats are using
it seems the moths and bats are involved
in an acoustic arms race
the scientists find further proof by
catching moths and recording their
reaction to bat echolocation sounds
the moths project their own high
frequency sounds it's like a screaming
match between species
they produce ultrasonic clicking sounds
at a rate of 4500 times per second
in the process the moths blanket the
surrounding environment and block the
bat
sonar become undetectable
this is one of a number of strategies
moths evolved to evade bats
akito kawahara wondered if some moths
decided on a more extreme shift in
behavior
by trading night for day they could
leave the bats behind forever and become
beauty queens in the process
according to the known fossil record the
appearance of bat sonar coincided with
the arrival of butterflies
it looked as if bats drove moths to
become butterflies
but the story turned out to be far more
complex
a few years after he came up with his
hypothesis new fossil imaging and genome
analysis techniques allowed kawahara to
dig deeper into the question of
butterfly evolution
akito and his team collected dna from
all the major families of butterflies
and moths to construct a lepidoptera
family tree
for the first time it revealed the
timing of major milestones in moth and
butterfly evolution
the team traced the ancestor of
butterflies back to around 98 million
years ago almost twice as long ago as
previously thought
bats weren't even present when the
ancestral moth became a
butterfly
akito had disproved his own theory
which brought the scientists back to the
question
why did butterflies evolve
akito kawahara now thinks the origin of
butterflies is tied to plants
and bees
scientists believe that pollinating bees
evolved shortly before butterflies did
between 100 and 120 million years ago at
the same time as flowering plants began
to proliferate
bees and flowers most likely co-evolved
each had what the other needed the
flowers needed bees to pollinate them
they made themselves continually
attractive by expanding their range of
colors
shapes and sizes
bees also diversified their looks and
behaviors to get to the pollen they
needed
some night living moths saw an
opportunity and came to exploit the
abundant new source of pollen
they evolved their own colors to suit
so bats didn't drive butterfly evolution
for now it looks like bees were the
major players and as new methods of data
gathering are discovered other theories
may emerge that's how science works
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their beauty may attract our attention
but without moths butterflies wouldn't
exist
they're essentially just day flying
moths
and after dark their unassuming
relatives jam the radars of their
enemies in the night skies
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