Friday 19 October 2018

Butterflies Boost Their Hearing with an Unusual Strategy



Image courtesy of D. Gordon E. Robertson, CC BY-SA 3.0.


Joel Kontinen

The world abounds with intelligent matter that cannot have come about by natural design. For instance, some butterflies aid their hearing so that it “enlarges its wing veins to pick up sounds it wouldn’t otherwise hear—a strategy that may be critical to its survival.”

Rcently, “researchers collected 30 common wood nymphs (Cercyonis pegala)—which have unusually swollen forewing veins—and played them low-frequency sounds” to them. “When the forewing vein was damaged, the wood nymphs’ ears were less sensitive overall, particularly to low frequencies between 750 and 5000 hertz, the team reports today in Biology Letters.”

They researchers suggests that “the audio boost may help wood nymphs pick up a broader range of frequencies in their forest environment, which could be critical for detecting potential predators.”

Not like the work of the blind watchmaker. This strategy needs intellectual wisdom, which only God can give.

Source:

Schembri, Frankie, 2018.These butterflies boost their hearing with an unusual strategy. Science (16 October).