Featured Post

THIS IS WHAT I DO

Barbed wire | Rescue | THIS IS WHAT I DO checking barbed wire in my own time. volunteer.

Male bats croon ‘love songs’ to get the girl


TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITYrightOriginal Study
Posted by Keith Randall-Texas A&M on July 23, 2013

TEXAS A&M (US) — Male bats appear to be the sexy singers of the animal world. They vocalize in a specific way to attract females and change their tune to keep them interested.

Over a three-year period, researchers made recordings of thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats in and around the Texas A&M campus and found that male bats produce songs aimed at attracting females to their roosts during mating season—and they have to do it quickly because bats tend to fly by in a hurry.


“Most other animals rely upon visual cues to attract a mate, such as birds having brightly colored feathers,” says Mike Smotherman. “With bats, it’s all about sounds, which may be why bats use singing more than other mammals.” (Credit: Texas A&M)

“These bats can fly very fast, almost 30 feet per second,” says Mike Smotherman, associate professor of biology. “They only have about one-tenth of a second to get the females’ attention.

“We learned that they use a very specific song to grab the female’s attention as she flies by the roost. Once a bat joins their roost, the males mix up their songs, possibly to keep the females entertained long enough for mating to begin.”

As reported in the journal Animal Behaviour, the bat’s romantic song is built from syllables and phrases and the free-tailed bats are unique because they can quickly reorganize those phrases to create different singing styles.

“The males can be very creative in their singing, Smotherman says.

Bats aren’t the only type of animal to use such love songs. The free-tailed bat’s singing is very similar to some of the most talented songbirds, but among mammals, singing is rare.

“Most other animals rely upon visual cues to attract a mate, such as birds having brightly colored feathers,” he adds. “With bats, it’s all about sounds, which may be why bats use singing more than other mammals.”

Bat singing appears to work, at least in Texas. The state is home to some of the largest bat colonies in the world, with tens of millions of bats winging through Texas at sunset. Each bat can consume immense quantities of insects as they try to find a home under bridges, in caves, barns, or numerous other places that provide a dark place in which to reside.

The Mexican free-tailed bat is one of the most common bat species, measuring about four inches in length with a wingspan of about 10 to 12 inches. Dark brown in color with rounded ears, the bats are frequently seen in the southwest United States but are also common in Central and South America.

Source: Texas A&M University

COMMENTS

BLOGGER
Name

Articles,51,Audio,23,Backyard,24,Barbed Wire,35,Bat Art,56,Bat Books,94,Bat Box,27,Bat Clothing,16,Bat Issues,642,Bat Stamps,1,Bats,4,Bats for Children,39,Bats for the Home,70,Electrocution,9,Events,39,info on bats,643,Jackie Sparrow,26,Microbats,469,Misc,121,Netting,40,Newsletter,5,Promoting,152,Rehab,92,Rehab 2011,7,Rehab 2012,25,Rehab 2013,15,Rehab 2014,6,Rehab 2015,108,Rehab 2016,136,Rehab 2017,73,Rehab 2018,29,Rehab 2019,2,Release Cage,2,RESCUE,74,Rescue 2011,1,Rescue 2012,7,RESCUE 2013,18,RESCUE 2014,8,RESCUE 2015,25,Rescue 2016,20,RESCUE 2017,16,Rescue 2018,10,Rescue 2019,6,Rob Mies,11,Shooting,2,Vegetation,27,Video,399,Virus,128,WebSites-Bat,45,
ltr
item
BatsRule!: Male bats croon ‘love songs’ to get the girl
Male bats croon ‘love songs’ to get the girl
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5u12TMoe3Sg/VoQbZhl0_OI/AAAAAAACCBs/mFp-WTuTnoM/s1600/Male%2Bbats%2Bcroon%2B%25E2%2580%2598love%2Bsongs%25E2%2580%2599%2Bto%2Bget%2Bthe%2Bgirl.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5u12TMoe3Sg/VoQbZhl0_OI/AAAAAAACCBs/mFp-WTuTnoM/s72-c/Male%2Bbats%2Bcroon%2B%25E2%2580%2598love%2Bsongs%25E2%2580%2599%2Bto%2Bget%2Bthe%2Bgirl.jpg
BatsRule!
http://batsrule-helpsavewildlife.blogspot.com/2015/12/male-bats-croon-love-songs-to-get-girl.html
http://batsrule-helpsavewildlife.blogspot.com/
http://batsrule-helpsavewildlife.blogspot.com/
http://batsrule-helpsavewildlife.blogspot.com/2015/12/male-bats-croon-love-songs-to-get-girl.html
true
4238281482117672351
UTF-8
Loaded All Posts Not found any posts VIEW ALL Readmore Reply Cancel reply Delete By Home PAGES POSTS View All RECOMMENDED FOR YOU LABEL ARCHIVE SEARCH ALL POSTS Not found any post match with your request Back Home Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat January February March April May June July August September October November December Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec just now 1 minute ago $$1$$ minutes ago 1 hour ago $$1$$ hours ago Yesterday $$1$$ days ago $$1$$ weeks ago more than 5 weeks ago Followers Follow THIS PREMIUM CONTENT IS LOCKED STEP 1: Share to a social network STEP 2: Click the link on your social network Copy All Code Select All Code All codes were copied to your clipboard Can not copy the codes / texts, please press [CTRL]+[C] (or CMD+C with Mac) to copy