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Praying Mantis Uses Ultrasonic Hearing to Dodge Bats
To avoid attack by a bat, a praying mantis maneuvers like a fighter pilot in aerial combat. Now researchers are trying to figure out how the praying mantises use built-in ultrasound detectors to anticipate the bat's approach and calculate their escape dive.
To avoid attack by a bat, one of its main nocturnal predators, a praying mantis maneuvers like a fighter pilot in aerial combat.
"Fighter pilots and mantises have evolved the same strategy—and that fact speaks to its strength," says David Yager, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland, in College Park, whose laboratory studies the interactions of predator and prey. (Related: Ancient Animal Could Take Itself Apart to Escape Predators.)
Under attack by a bat, a praying mantis suddenly dives straight toward the ground.
To illustrate the defensive maneuver for his students, Yager shows a clip from "Top Gun." "The mantis uses the same strategy as Tom Cruise," he says.
When Yager first documented the praying mantis' moves, fighter pilots called
