Blown away? Wind speed and foraging success in an acoustic predator.

ABSTRACT: Foraging animals must contend with fluctuating environmental variables that affect foraging success, including conditions like wind noise, which could diminish the usefulness of particular sensory modes. Although the documented impact of anthropogenic noise on animal behavior has become clear, there is limited research on natural noise and its potential influence on mammalian behavior. We investigated foraging behavior in the myrmecophagous bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis), a species known to rely predominantly on hearing for prey detection. For a year, we monitored the foraging behavior of 18 bat-eared foxes from a habituated population in South Africa, amidst varying wind speeds (0-15.5 km/h). In contrast to expectations, foraging rates did not generally decline with increasing w

SUBMITTER: Renda S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10033565 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature