Produced by: Gorongosa Media Project and Off The Fence
Finalist in: Short Program
Jesse Barber and two graduate students headed to Gorongosa National Park to study bat-moth, predator-prey interactions. The scientists design several experiments to determine the strategies that have evolved in these Gorongosa moths to avoid being eaten by bats. The strategies involve the use of ultrasound to either jam bats’ sonars or to signal to bats that they taste bad. Some of the moth species are Batesian mimics in that they don’t truly taste bad but mimic the ultrasound of moths that do.
