Egyptian fruit bat found to use echolocation during daylight hours

Bob Yirka is a writer for Phys.org.

Egyptian fruit bats use echolocation even though they have good eyesight, according to a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University. The group describes their study of the bats in a paper published in the journal Current Biology.

Bats are nocturnal. This has been suggested as a way to avoid predators. To find and catch food, and to avoid running into things in the dark, most bats have developed echolocation, sending out short bursts of sound and detecting their bounces. Only 10 out of 1,400 species of bats are active during the day. echolocation is used during low light at dawn or dusk. The picture of an Egyptian fruit bat that appeared to be using echolocation was found by the researchers. The bats were roosting in the ceiling of an underground parking garage, so they set up equipment to find out if that was possible.

The bats were recorded as they left the roost and became active. They recorded 500 bats in flight. As the bats emerged from their roost, 70% began using echolocation. They moved their gear to capture the bats as they approached targets such as trees for landing or water sources for drinking. The bats began using echolocation, seemingly in conjunction with their vision, as a way to gauge distance to a target. The clicking they used to echolocate increased as they grew closer to the target. They found that some of the bats were echolocating while carrying food in their mouths, which should have been difficult, as the bats make their echolocation sounds with their tongues. When the bats were flying high above the ground, they tended to stop echolocating. The bats use echolocation and vision to fine- tune their assessment of the distance to objects.

More information: Ofri Eitan et al, Functional daylight echolocation in highly visual bats, Current Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.02.075 Journal information: Current Biology

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