Bats refuse to eat either muted or intact moths of
C. tenera. Hawking bats, that is, those seeking moths in flight, attacked intact, clicking
C. tenera less frequently than surgically muted (with tymbal organs destroyed) moths in experiments. Intact moths emitted calls when the hunting bats switched from search phase calls to approach phase calls. In gleaning attacks, when bats attack moths perched on surfaces, bats use a different frequency of sound that these moths cannot hear, and the moths do not respond until actually handled by bats. Then clicking moths were dropped more frequently than mute moths. In a set of experiments using bats that had never been exposed to moths before, Hristov and Conner found the clicking signals helped the bats to learn which moths are distasteful, and so to avoid them. They did not rule out a jamming function for the calls, however, and Ratcliffe and Fullard noted 20% of these native bats aborted attacks on the moth. Like many
Arctiinae,
C. tenera flies all day and night, though preferentially some time after dusk. Its sense of hearing, on the other hand, is only moderately well-developed. Thus, the calls of
Cycnia tenera have more of a defensive than a social function, and the aposematic role is likely to be significant. ==Subspecies==