Sensory challenges for trawling bats: Finding transient prey on water surfaces

Kirstin Übernickel, Ralph Simon, Elisabeth K. V. Kalko, Marco Tschapka

    Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    Bats are able to identify obstacles and prey objects based exclusively on acoustic information acquired via echolocation. To assess the echo information potentially available to the trawling bat Noctilio leporinus, prey objects were ensonified with artificial bat calls and deduced echo target strengths (TS) of the reflected signals. The artificial calls consisted either of constant frequency (CF) or frequency modulated (FM) sounds. Detection distances were calculated for call intensities of N. leporinus emitted in the field and in confined space. Measurements of a transient target con- sisting of a brief water splash and subsequently expanding water ripples revealed that concentri- cally expanding water ripples can provide sufficiently loud echoes to be detected by trawling bats. Experiments with stationary targets revealed differences in TS depending on the type of signal used (CF or FM). A calculated maximum detection distance between 4.5 and 13.7m for all measured tar- gets indicates that prey detection in this very loud calling species occurs much earlier than sug- gested by estimations based on modifications in echolocation or flight behavior.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1914-1922
    Number of pages9
    JournalJournal of the Acoustical Society of America
    Volume139
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Apr 2016

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