When I was a caterpillar everything was right. I never worried about anything apart from where the next meal was coming from and, since I ate leaves and lived in a tree, there was never a very high level of anxiety. It was when I woke as an adult with a glorious pair of wings that things got complicated. The night sky is full of bats and they all want to eat me. But so far I have defied every one of them. As soon as I got in the air everything sort of clicked.
Monday
There was a time when the night sky was the land of the moths: only our own kind dared to spread a wing in the blackness: a time of peace and goodwill to all moths. The dark side of the world was sweet and kind for 150 million years. And then came the bats.
Tuesday
Most moths would back themselves to out-perform anything else that flies in the night: all we need is a glimmer of light. But bats don’t even need that. The pitch dark is their best time and they hunt other night-fliers with their sonar. Just watch them: twist, turn and grab. They eat moths by the thousand. But they don’t worry me.
Wednesday
So there I was out in the blackness of the Arizona night, minding my own business, when a bloody great bat came hurtling out of the darkness homing in on poor little me. I could tell it was me he was after: I could hear him getting closer: his echo-locating calls speeded up drastically and got ever more intense. And do you know what I did? I called back. I clicked at him. That jammed his sonar and he missed.
Thursday
It’s quite a trick. I click with a specialised organ called a tymbal. I can click 4,500 times a second – a ferocious rate – and that interferes with the echoes the hunting bat is listening for. Once my clicks get into his brain he loses all precision: no longer knows exactly where I am. He can’t compute time and distance with his usual accuracy. Missed, you bastard!
Friday
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The salad days are behind me: the endless days of leaf-eating are gone. Now I’m an adult I’m in a hurry. No food, thanks, I want only a female. So once again I click. My wings are reasonably handsome, I suppose, but what a female bertholdia really admires is a handsome click. The more time I can fill with intense clicking the sexier I am. And it’s my belief that I’m getting sexier with practice.
Saturday
And out of the night she came. All that bat-dodging has paid off. I’m here and in my prime and so is she. You know how it is when you meet someone and you just sort of know? It was like that. All my life was a preparation for this one great moment. We – well – we just sort of clicked.
Grote’s bertholdia CV
Lifespan A year in total; maybe three weeks as an adult
Eating habits Food isn’t a grownup thing
Hobbies The art of the click
Sexual preferences A lady of the night
Photograph by Nature Picture Library/Alamy