LONDON: Scientists use infrared cameras and 3-D printed flowers to study moths, hoping the moths can show them how to build better flying robots.
With its ability to dart, dodge, and hover – all in near darkness – the hawkmoth has recently attracted attention from biologists and Air Force brass alike.
Now, scientists say that they have unlocked the mystery of how Manduca sexta, a large moth native to most parts of North America, is able to lock onto its targets with such precision.
Hawkmoths feed by hovering, hummingbird-like, near a flower in order to reach the nectar. The moth has to continuously calculate for the changing breeze and the varying light conditions, both of which make the process of getting nectar out of the flower more difficult.
“Between midday to midnight [light] changes by 10 billion fold which is one of the most variable quantities in the natural world that animals have to deal with,” says Simon Sponberg, the lead author of this study and an assistant professor at Georgia Tech University.
Scientists use infrared cameras and 3-D printed flowers to study moths, hoping the moths can show them how to build better flying robots.
With its ability to dart, dodge, and hover – all in near darkness – the hawkmoth has recently attracted attention from biologists and Air Force brass alike.
Now, scientists say that they have unlocked the mystery of how Manduca sexta, a large moth native to most parts of North America, is able to lock onto its targets with such precision.
Hawkmoths feed by hovering, hummingbird-like, near a flower in order to reach the nectar. The moth has to continuously calculate for the changing breeze and the varying light conditions, both of which make the process of getting nectar out of the flower more difficult.
“Between midday to midnight [light] changes by 10 billion fold which is one of the most variable quantities in the natural world that animals have to deal with,” says Simon Sponberg, the lead author of this study and an assistant professor at Georgia Tech University.
In an article published in the journal Science, Dr. Sponberg and his colleagues explain that moths adapt to such extreme variations of light by changing the speed of the visual processing parts of their brains.
Sponberg likens the moth’s visual perception to a camera. “You’re exposing the visual system to light for a longer period of time before they need to act on the information,” he says. “You have many frames being taken sequentially and the frames get exposed to light for a longer period of time, but if you expose them to light for too long the frames get blurred together.”
That’s why slowing down one’s visual processing carries a cost: go too slow, and you’re no longer able to track movement. “We found that the moths are doing this, but they’re only doing it to a point and that point is very special. They’re only slowing down their brain to the point where they are able to track the movements of natural flowers. and so they seem to be tuned to the demands of their natural environment.”