Sending signals

Interestingly, therehave been two Nobel Prizes relatingto pheromones. AdolfButenandt received the Nobel Prizein1959 foridentifyingand synthesizing thefirstinsect pheromone, bombykol. Andin 2004, Linda Buckand Richard Axelwere awarded the prizejointly for their discoveries ofodorant receptors andthe organization ofthe olfactorysystem

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Baron Jakob Johann von Uexkull, a Baltic German biologist, mentioned in his book entitled Stroll through the World of Animals that all creatures, including plants, on this planet live in an Umwelt (German, literally “environment”) ~ that is its own sensory world evolved to satisfy its particular requirements. A dog, a bat, a bee, a tick, a human etc. all live in the same physical world, but each perceives and interacts with it in vastly different ways.

The 18th-century Italian naturalist Lazzaro Spallanzani was puzzled, for instance, by the way bats could fly in the dark, but it was not until 1938 that Donald Graffin, the American zoologist, discovered they were able to find their way by using high-frequency sounds. The invention of the ultrasonic microphone, together with the invention of sound spectrographs has enabled researchers to listen to high-frequency sounds in the world of bats, dolphins, tree crickets and a host of small mammals. With the technical revolution during the past few decades many mysteries have been solved when scientists found that animals used environmental cues quite beyond normal human perception.

On the morning of 6 May 1879, Jean-Henri Fabre, a French entomologist, found a female peacock emperor moth on his laboratory table. The moth is most commonly referred to as the Giant Peacock Moth (Satumia pyri). It is the largest moth in Europe, with a wingspan of 15-20 centimeters. Fabre kept the moth under observation by putting it in a bell-jar. He kept the jar in a room at night leaving one window open. What he saw that night was unforgettable. He wrote: “With a soft flick-flack the great male moths fly around the bell-jar, alight, set off again, come back, fly up to the ceiling and down... The scene suggests a wizard’s cave with its whirls of bats.”