US EditionBats Adapt Echolocation to Avoid Collisions in Dense Cave Emergence
- A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on March 31 details how researchers believe they have discovered how bats avoid collisions amidst the echolocation jamming that occurs when they emerge from caves.
- Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, led by scientists from Tel Aviv University, studied Greater mouse-tailed bats in Israel's Hula Valley over two years, collecting data from wild bats emerging from a cave at dusk and recreating the full behavioral sequence using a model.
- The team discovered that bats significantly reduced echolocation jamming within five seconds of leaving the cave by fanning out from the dense colony core while maintaining group structure and emitting shorter, weaker calls at a higher frequency, contrary to initial suspicions that they would simply disperse.
- The study revealed that, despite 94% of echolocations being jammed, the bats changed their echolocation to a higher frequency in order to gain detailed information about their neighbors, with one student stating that the simulation verifies assumptions of how bats solve this complex task during emergence.
- This echolocation strategy helps bats maneuver successfully and avoid collisions, emphasizing the importance of studying animals in their natural environment to understand the challenges they face, as stated by study co-author Aya Goldshtein: "But only by putting ourselves, as close as possible, into the shoes of an animal will we ever be able to understand the challenges they face and what they do to solve them.
10 Articles
10 Articles
Scientists solve 'cocktail party' mystery of bat echolocation
Every night, bats emerge out of roosts in massive numbers, creating what scientists have called a 'cocktail party nightmare' of clashing echolocations. Nobody knew how bats managed this severe sensorial challenge. Now, scientists have tracked bats within a group of thousands to find out: when bats first emerge from the roost, they increase their distance from the center of the group and adjust their echolocation to maneuver safely in the areas o…
How bats avoid crashing into one another
When a colony of bats leaves their cave and takes to the skies at night to hunt, they often do so in such big groups that they almost look like one giant blob. How these winged mammals can achieve such tight densities–sometimes numbering in the hundreds of thousands of bats–yet do not crash into one another has puzzled scientists for decades. Now, researchers believe they’ve figured out how bats can still hear amidst the din similar to a noisy …
Bats' echolocation strategy: How dense colonies avoid mid-air collisions
Aya Goldshtein, Omer Mazar, and Yossi Yovel have spent many evenings standing outside bat caves. Even so, seeing thousands of bats erupting out of a cave and flapping into the night, sometimes in densities so high that they appear liquid, astounds the scientists every time. But until recently, the bat biologists were even more baffled by what they didn't see.
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