In the article titled "Hungry Bats Prompt Firefly Flashes" posted on October 29th by Jennifer Viegas on the Discovery News website, she outlines the development of the fireflies glow as a predator deterrent.
Mostly everyone has seen a fireflies glow in the night, specifically in this part of the country where bats, a common predator of the insect world, are of high populous. The hypothesis that was analyzed in Viegas' article was that fireflies actually developed their glowing not only as a mate attractant but it serves a dual purpose of being an anti-predator mechanism.
Fireflies are often toxic to bats. They contain toxins known as lucibufagins. These toxins can cause nausea, vomiting, extreme distaste and in a species of lizard sometimes death. The bat may not know that what he is zeroing in on is a firefly, so instead of the firefly being killed it deters the bat before it even makes the effort through the use of its glow. The firefly often is give a good chance to set his glowing deterrent because often the bat, through echolocation, is unable to snag it's prey on the first try. This gives the opportunity for the firefly to warn the bat before he even tries again.
In a series of research experiments testing this now well accepted hypothesis, bats were offered beetles (their favorite food) that were coated in fireflies, and the bats all refused the meals. In other experiments the bats were presented with lures that would periodically flash the bioluminescent glow, and when the flashing did occur the bats avoided the lure. These experiments helped to prove that fireflies use their bioluminescent glow, not only as a mate attractant but for a mechanism to ware off predators.
This glowing flash in fireflies has now been developed in the firefly as an extremely beneficial aspect. The flash aids them in a reproductive and survival sense helping to maintain the insects futility and survival.
Jessica Abu-Hijleh (7)
This is pretty neat! How could they tell that there were beetles underneath the fireflies? How does the firefly know a bat is coming in the first place? This was a neat coincidence as a topic because of the lecture about fireflies! Good article.
ReplyDelete-Alyson Paige
It is interesting how adaptations such as flashing a bioluminescent glow can evolve to have multiple functions. How is this glow used in mating? Also if a bat uses sonar to find its prey how is it able to sense or detect the glow given off by the firefly? Do you know if the fireflies have evolved to produce toxins specifically for predators?
ReplyDeletePosted by Tiffany Mallet
I think that with the beetle question what they did was just coat the beetles in the proteins in the firefly that cause the negative taste for the bat at they didn't realize until they bit into it. Once the bat comes into attack the firefly and misses that is pretty much they only way the firefly gets the hint. It then has a chance to escape because it has become aware of the attack and that bat is now rerouting and trying again. I think that the glow attracts mates like the brighter the glow the more fit the mate is and thus it will be more successful. I never really thought about how the bats see the glow I think that they are only mostly blind so they do see it in a sense just probably not as bright as we do, they are able to track exact location using their sonar location but they are able to vaguely see the glow deterring them initially.
ReplyDelete~Jessica Abu-Hijleh