Last week’s press release “Unmasking a Flying Predator in Texas” briefly mentions bats as prey for a nocturnal flying creature in Texas. Pterosaurs similar to the ropen of Papua New Guinea are mentioned only a bit more than bats. But owls have not a word of coverage, notwithstanding barn owls are said, by a researcher in Australia (Fred Silcock) to sometimes emit a bioluminescent glow, albeit perhaps only rarely. So why is nothing said about barn owls as candidates for what causes Marfa Lights?
I relates to one of the behaviors of those mystery lights:
. . . when one of the bioluminescent predators has been glowing for awhile, not far above the ground, it will be joined by another of its kind, which will then turn on its own glow. After insects have been attracted to that area, the two creatures will separate, which appears to distant human observers to be one light splitting into two. The predators will fly away from each other for some distance, then turn back and fly together. During the separation, bats may begin feeding on the concentration of insects before being caught from two sides by the larger predators.
Barn owls are not thought to be intelligent enough to coordinate multi-predator trapping of prey on the wing.
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