Featured Post

THIS IS WHAT I DO

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

Adorable Way Bats Catch Prey

Echolocating bats are champions of auditory scene analysis, exploiting active sensing processes to perceive the world in high spatial and temporal resolution. The bat adapts in tandem its outgoing sonar vocalizations with movements of the external auditory system to increase sensory acuity. Credit: Melville J. Wohlgemuth

You know that adorable habit dogs have of tilting their head from side to side while listening? Although the behavior in dogs is not fully understood, new research finds that bats do the same sort of thing, waggling their heads in the most adorable way.

And while we may not have previously understood why dogs do this, Johns Hopkins University researcher Melville J. Wohlgemuth suggests these bat movements may serve to enhance signals used by senses like sight and hearing — possibly even in dog, cats, and even humans.

It’s commonly known that bats rely on echolocation to detect, track and catch prey. But Wohlgemuth was curious to find out what purpose these mysterious head waggles and ear wiggles served. Did they actually factor into the hunt? Or were they just another endearing trait?

“It’s an adorable behavior, and I was curious about the purpose,” Wohlgemuth, a postdoctoral fellow in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, said in astatement. “I wanted to know when bats were doing this and why. It seemed to occur as bats were targeting prey, and that turns out to be the case.”

To find out, Wohlgemuth and his team trained big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) to sit on a platform while tracking mealworms attached to a fishing line. After training, reflective markers were attached to the bats’ heads and ears, which allowed the researchers to precisely measure the head and ear positions at all times while using high-tech recording devices.

The found that the head waggles occurred about once per second, usually when the prey changed direction or moved erratically. Subtle ears movements also occurred as the prey grew closer. The researchers say these tiny and almost imperceptible ear twitches may help the bats hear the echoes it uses to track and capture the prey. And on a millisecond time scale, the researchers found that all these movements coordinated with the bats’ vocalizations, which may add to their pinpoint targeting accuracy.

Previous research on how animals and humans localize sound sources missed the importance of head waggles and ear movements, said Johns Hopkins professor and neuroscientist and co-author Cynthia F. Moss. She adds that this may be due to the fact that most labs typically observe the subject with a fixed or restrained head position. Animals don’t operate like that in the real world.

Moss compares the bats’ head and ear movements to other species that use active sensing, such as the ear movements of a cat on alert or the head tilt of an owl.

“By studying these movements,” she said, “we as humans can get insight into how movement helps animals sense their environment.”

Results are published in the open access journal PLOS Biology. More videos available here.




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!: Adorable Way Bats Catch Prey
Adorable Way Bats Catch Prey
Adorable Way Bats Catch Prey
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrDSz1j-5794uSKoRJpW7gcoQh1yJSL43YnAgNGnLoMkUmMhQLEJMrYiuyO9FZf2II2sKPNcIpn07KxheOlT2DSi_RRcCnhBgLxmTH78RNyyqjNnO5xW3og-rph0nO6BooVQDhsGFbHw/s1600/Adorable+Way+Bats+Catch+Prey.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrDSz1j-5794uSKoRJpW7gcoQh1yJSL43YnAgNGnLoMkUmMhQLEJMrYiuyO9FZf2II2sKPNcIpn07KxheOlT2DSi_RRcCnhBgLxmTH78RNyyqjNnO5xW3og-rph0nO6BooVQDhsGFbHw/s72-c/Adorable+Way+Bats+Catch+Prey.jpg
BatsRule!
https://batsrule-helpsavewildlife.blogspot.com/2016/11/adorable-way-bats-catch-prey.html
https://batsrule-helpsavewildlife.blogspot.com/
http://batsrule-helpsavewildlife.blogspot.com/
http://batsrule-helpsavewildlife.blogspot.com/2016/11/adorable-way-bats-catch-prey.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