Bats buzz like bees and hornets to scare off hungry owls

By Corryn Wetzel

The buzzing sound of stinging insects is mimicked by bats to scare off predatory owls. This type of acoustic trick, when a harmless animal mimics a dangerous one, has never before been seen in mammals.

While working with bats as a PhD student at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, he was struck by the strange hum when he handled the bats. He was able to assemble the right group of researchers to investigate the phenomenon.

The recordings of bats buzzing were compared to the hum of insects. The team noticed the buzz of the bats and insects was very similar when they limited the frequencies.

Half of the barn owls and half of the tawny owls were wild and the other half was captive-raised. Each owl heard a buzzing bat, a western honeybee, a European hornet and a non-buzzing bat vocalization.

The owls moved further away from the speaker when they heard the buzz. When the birds heard bat noises, they approached the source of the sound.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York has a bat evolution program.

Some birds recoiled more than others because they were spooked by the buzzing sound. The wild owls that could potentially have had previous encounters with stinging insects had the most dramatic responses.

The buzzes work on owls, but they don't mean they only work on owls.

He thinks that if the mouse-eared bats use acoustic deception, other bats may do the same.

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