Fruit Bats Navigate the Dark with Their Strange, Clicking Wings

It turns out that not all bats use vocalizations when they navigate the darkness. Scientists have discovered that Old World fruit bats, long classified as "non-echolocating," use a rudimentary form of echolocation with clicks that they produce from their own wings.

The researchers first began their study when a man in Indonesia mentioned a species of bat that had wings that clicked. Intrigued by this fact, the scientists then selected a total of 19 wild individuals representing three species of fruit bat and different parts of the evolutionary family tree. More specifically, they examined their ability to find their way in the dark.

"We did all we could to prove it wrong, including sealing the bats' mouths and anesthetizing their tongues, but nothing stopped them from clicking, except for when we interfered with their wing flaps," said Yossi Yovel, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The researchers also tested the bats' ability to find their way in the dark. This revealed that fruit bats have echolocation abilities, though they're poorer than those of other echolocating species. In fact, the fruit bats constantly crashed into thick cables, though they could easily learn to discriminate between larger objects; that said, it's obvious that their abilities are rudimentary in comparison to other bats.

"When we study extant species of echolocating bats, we see a developed sensory system that has been adapted and improved over millions of years of evolution," said Yovel. "The rudimentary echolocation of the fruit bat is one example of how the first types of echolocation may have evolved."

The findings reveal that echolocation may have evolved initially for bats to identify and avoid crashing into large objects, such as cave walls. Over time, echolocation was refined and evolved over time. This, in turn, reveals a bit more about the evolution of bats in general.

The findings are published in the journal Current Biology.

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).