Driftless Roots

"It took me a long time to realise how many of our classic books on animals were by gay writers who wrote of their relationships with animals in lieu of human loves of which they could not speak."

Gavin Maxwell’s Ring of Bright Water, for example: the tale of a lonely man on the Scottish coast with an Iraqi otter on his sofa. Or the books of the BBC radio naturalist Maxwell Knight, former MI5 spymaster and closet queen. Doubly disallowed to speak openly of his allegiances, Knight wrote a book about hand-rearing a cuckoo called Goo. His obsession with this small, greedy, feathery, parasitic bird is terribly moving; it was a species made of all the hidden elements of Knight’s life: subterfuge, deceit, passing oneself off as something one is not. [...]

[T.H. White] kept [grass snakes] because ‘it was impossible to impose upon them, or steal their affections’. He loved them because they were misunderstood, maligned, and ‘inevitably themselves.’

----------- Chapter 4, H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (2014)

Cladonia verticillata 

Ladder lichen, tiered cladonia

So obviously, there’s a lot to unpack here. But stay with me as we take in this adorable little weirdo in all its glory. C. verticillata has wedge-shaped or lobed basal squamules, and fruticose, cup-like podetia that stick straight up. The unique characteristic of these podetia is that they form tiers of cups proliferating from the cup centers like tiny, bizarre fountains. It is grayish-green in color, and brownish or tan in areas touched by sunlight. Apothecia are small and brown, and grow out of the cup margins in small globules. C. verticillata is not particularly common, but occurs in cool, upland, subarctic, boreal, or montane regions around the world, preferring acidic soil and open areas. If I saw a design like this for like, anything in nature, I’d be like “that’s so unrealistic, no way.” But like, she went there, y’all. 

Open mesh cocoons of false burnet moths in the family Urodidae

DO NOT REMOVE PHOTO CREDIT

Photo 1 by Frank Canon \ Instagram - Shared with permission

Photo 2 by Andreas Kay - CC 2.0

Photo 3 by Art Anker - Shared with permission

Photo 4 by Felipe Campos - CC 4.0

Photo 5 by Roberto Guller - CC 4.0

https://sciencespies.com/biology/deaf-moths-evolved-noise-cancelling-scales-to-evade-prey/

Deaf moths evolved noise-cancelling scales to evade prey

A particularly fluffy moth species (Periphoba arcaei) displaying highly elongated thorax scales which act as a type of acoustic camouflage against bats. Credit: Thomas R. Neil

Some species of deaf moths can absorb as much as 85 per cent of the incoming sound energy from predatory bats—who use echolocation to detect them. The findings, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface today, reveal the moths, who are unable to hear the ultrasonic calls of bats, have evolved this clever defensive strategy to help it survive.

Bats hunt at night using echolocation. The technique, which is also known as biological sonar, first evolved around 65 million years ago and enables bats to search for and find prey putting huge predation pressure on nocturnal insects. One defence that many nocturnal insects evolved is the ability to hear the ultrasonic calls of bats, which allows them to actively evade approaching bats.

Many moth species, however, cannot hear. The team of researchers from the University of Bristol wanted to investigate the alternative defences against bats that some species of deaf moths might have evolved.

Using scanning electron microscopy, the team from Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences discovered that the thorax scales of the moths Antherina suraka and Callosamia promethea looked structurally similar to fibres that are used as noise insulation, so wanted to explore whether the thorax scales of moths might be acting in some way to absorb the ultrasonic clicks of bats and dampen the echoes returning to the bat, offering the moths a type of acoustic camouflage.

One of the four species used in the present study (Antherina suraka). The thorax scales on this moth can absorb up to 85% of the sound energy produced by an echolocating bat. Credit: Thomas R. Neil

The team measured that the scales on the body of a moth absorb as much as 85 per cent of the incoming sound energy and that the scales can reduce the distance a bat would be able to detect a moth by almost 25 per cent, potentially offering the moth a significant increase in its survival chances.

Dr. Thomas Neil, Research Associate from Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences and lead author, said: “We were amazed to see that these extraordinary insects were able to achieve the same levels of sound absorption as commercially available technical sound absorbers, whilst at the same time being much thinner and lighter.

A composite image of a moth and a butterfly showing how we can use acoustic tomography to create a picture using sound. The color images show the target species whilst the grey scale is the resultant tomographic image. This technique allows us to measure exactly how much sound is being reflected from certain body parts of a specimen. Credit: Thomas R. Neil and Marc W. Holderied

“We are now looking at ways in which we can use these biological systems to inspire new solutions to sound insulating technology and analyse the scaling on a moth‘s wing to explore whether they too have sound absorbing properties.”

Explore further

Moths survive bat predation through acoustic camouflage fur

More information: Thomas R. Neil et al, Thoracic scales of moths as a stealth coating against bat biosonar, Journal of The Royal Society Interface (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2019.0692

Provided by University of Bristol

Citation: Deaf moths evolved noise-cancelling scales to evade prey (2020, February 25) retrieved 25 February 2020 from https://phys.org/news/2020-02-deaf-moths-evolved-noise-cancelling-scales.html

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Paul Stamets is clearly a smart person, and his passion for mycology is intoxicating, but it’s important to keep in mind that at his roots he is a businessman.

My problems with Stamets boil down to the scientific method and how to decipher scientific results. I do believe that science is something that should be broadly accessible to everyone, regardless of whether or not they passed through the ivory towers. HOWEVER if you are going to do science and then bring your results into the public’s eye (in his case, via TED Talks, books, movies, etc.), even try to SELL your results as some miracle cure, you must do more rigorous science. When people’s health is relying on the robustness of your methods, you must do more rigorous science. Science is messy. Sometimes things that have worked in one condition, never work in any other condition (see this paper debunking one of his claims). Stamets inflates his results and then tries to sell them as a product. There is no accountability. His products and claims aren’t evaluated by the FDA.