Fast vocal-motor tracking of escaping prey in echolocating bats.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Echolocating bats face an intense arms race with insect prey that can detect bat calls and initiate evasive maneuvers. Their high closing speeds and short biosonar ranges leave bats with only a few 100 ms between detection and capture, suggesting a reactive sensory-motor operation that might preclude tracking of escaping prey. Here we test this hypothesis using greater mouse-eared bats (Myotis myotis) as a model species. With high-resolution biologging tags, we recorded bats hunting aerial prey in the wild and we also collected data from trained conspecifics in the laboratory facing simulated prey escapes of various speeds and distances.

Results

We show that wild bats employed flexible buzz durations during hunting. In the laboratory, such dynamic vocal responses

SUBMITTER: Foskolos I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11756208 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature