Comments on: How bats find water and why metal confuses them

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:56:57 +0000

@4 Ed,

Good point. I’d assumed that a roadway surface would be “smooth enough” to produce the same echo reflection as water, or smooth metal. Perhaps it isn’t.

Is there any way to find out?

By: Zach Miller

Zach Miller — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:47:26 +0000

Interesting that the response to “water” is an inate response. I’d like to see this tested on a variety of echolocating bats, from all branches of the group. One might be able to suss out how far back in bat evolution this inate response to echolocating goes.

By: Eleanor

Eleanor — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 08:50:53 +0000

Truly amazing animals, but I always thought they were stupid! Clearly it doesn’t matter if the ‘water’ is in a non-water place if they headbutt the table in these experiments.
I’ve seen them drinking from rivers, so some amount of pertubation in the surface seems to be ok.

By: Juicyheart

Juicyheart — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 01:30:03 +0000

Also the flat surfaces of car hoods and such are raise above the ground, and this might make a difference. So do bats drink from birdfeeders or just ground water?

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:12:25 +0000

Surely the abrasive character would make them very different. A road surface isn’t exactly smooth.

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:08:55 +0000

I don’t think I’d be worrying about large expanses of smooth metal, either in the wild or in urban areas. That’s not the big problem it seems to me (the bat won’t get a “mouthful of metal”, it’s lower jaw will whack the surface).

No, you need to worry about large expanses of concrete/asphalt. These are much more common. The surfaces are pretty abrasive and a bat could hurt themselves on them. Also, there are cars driving on most of those surfaces.

By: Georg

Georg — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:57:52 +0000

what about water with a slightly undulated surface?
Georg

By: natselrox

natselrox — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:24:40 +0000

“In addition, naive juvenile bats that had never before encountered a water body showed spontaneous drinking responses from smooth plates. This provides the first evidence for innate recognition of a habitat cue in a mammal.”

Interesting.