Sitting in traffic on the 210 Interstate Freeway can be quite a pain when you're on your way to Los Angeles. In fact, in the stop and go traffic you may find yourself going a "little batty"-and you'd never guess just how right you are. When you're behind the wheel, abiding by the rules of the road, you may just be revealing a bit more of your bat side than usual as a new study published this week in the journal PLOS Computational Biology reveals that humans aren't the only ones who follow "traffic rules" in nature.
Investigating the foraging techniques of Daubenton's bats (Myotis daubentonii) in the United Kingdom, researchers with the University of Bristol have discovered that their movements are far more deliberate and choreographed than anyone ever previously thought.
"Collective movements of flocking birds or shoaling fish are amongst the most fascinating natural phenomena" lead researcher of the study with the University of Bristol, Dr. Marc Holderied says. "Everyone has experienced the challenges of walking through a moving crowd, however, what information individuals use for movement coordination is very difficult to know-except in the case of echolocating bats."
Foraging low over water for stranded insects in Somerset, UK, the test subjects of the study were pairs of Daubenton's bats on the hunt. But while these flying mammals were near together in their vicinity, their efficient foraging techniques allowed them to be able hunt in tandem for the prey, only a blink of an eye apart.
Emitting high-pitched biosonar calls and listening for the return of their echoes the bats are able to image their surroundings with the information they gather from their sound. So to discover just how the bats were able to hunt together, Holderied and his team of researchers used these sounds to their advantage. By accurately measuring the biosonar calls of interacting bat pairs in the field, the researchers were able to calculate what each individual perceived, revealing a set of "traffic rules" that the team had never considered to be the case. By following the sounds of the leader bat, a position which is switched each chase, the follower bat is able to hunt in tandem while avoiding collisions mid-air.
"The bats seem to have adopted a simple trick: once another individual is close enough for your biosonar to pick up its echo, copy this individual's flight direction within four to five of your own wingbeats" Dr. Holderied says.
And in following the rules of the road the bats are able to forage successfully, without any insurance claims or collisions to speak of thanks to their echolocation.
