A fringe-lipped bat preys on a túngara frog in Panama.
Picture by Marcos Guerra
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Picture by Marcos Guerra
A fringe-lipped bat preys on a túngara frog in Panama.
Picture by Marcos Guerra
There are over 1400 species of bats discovered world wide. And the best way they navigate is vastly assorted.
The overwhelming majority are utilizing, as you may count on, echolocation. That is the place an animal makes use of mirrored sound to navigate.
However echolocation isn’t the one sense that they use.
When it comes time to seek out and hunt their prey, bats will use their eyes. Some rely closely on scent. And a few have advanced the power to snoop on their future meals.
“After which these frog consuming bats, for instance, they’re truly listening in on the mating calls of frogs which might be a lot, a lot decrease in frequency,” says Rachel Page, a behavioral ecologist and workers scientist on the Smithsonian Tropical Analysis Institute in Panama.
She’s been learning fringe-lipped bats, native to Panama, for greater than 20 years. They’ve monumental ears, which assist them take heed to frog calls and assess which frogs are poisonous, and which may make a scrumptious snack.
What researchers like Web page did not know was how bats developed this potential to snoop on frogs. Are they born with it? Do they study to tell apart between toxic and palatable frogs over time?
Her latest study provides some new clues.
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