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Bats Can Jam Each Other's Ultrasonic Signals

Posted by samzenpus on from the mine-now-I-take-it dept.

sciencehabit writes Just before nabbing an insect, a bat emits a rapid series of ultrasonic calls whose echoes back pinpoint the prey's exact location. Scientists call these sounds 'the feeding buzz,' and they're known to attract other bats presumably in search of a meal. When another bat arrives, it can jam the hunter's buzz, according to a new study, much like someone blocking a radio signal. That causes the original bat to miss its meal, allowing its competitor to swoop in to grab the insect instead. This is the first time that this type of competitive interference among individuals of the same species has been discovered in animals, the scientists say.

50 comments

  1. Competitive interference by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is the first time that this type of competitive interference among individuals of the same species has been discovered in animals, the scientists say.

    Any Friday night in a dance club should let them review that statement.

    1. Re:Competitive interference by zlives · · Score: 1

      scientists don't make it out on Friday nights. too busy checking out bats

  2. Sorta like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BRICK!

  3. Seems familiar by charronia · · Score: 1

    How do you say "killstealing" in bat language?

    1. Re:Seems familiar by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      "Squeeeeeeeekeekeeek", same as anything else.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:Seems familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bazinga! in morse-code?

    3. Re:Seems familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "You're harshing my buzz, man."

    4. Re:Seems familiar by Immerman · · Score: 1

      You forgot the inflection on the fifth and ninth 'e's - you don't want to know what you just said about that guy's mother.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  4. And I hope you like jammin' too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    n/t

    At least human intelligence allows us a choice over whether to compete. Shame most of us don't recognise it.

    1. Re:And I hope you like jammin' too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those who choose not to compete are called "losers"
      Shame you don't recognize that. Loser.

    2. Re:And I hope you like jammin' too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mommy was always proud of her little throwback, eh?

      Behave like pondlife and you too can aspire to be the biggest fish in a pond - what a goal! Pathetic, lol.

    3. Re:And I hope you like jammin' too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trick to not being a looser without competing is to excel
      Problem with competing is there is only 1 winner and i can bet you ain't the one (Nothing personal, just probabilities).

  5. dogs by dhammabum · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I remember when I was a kid we had two basset hounds, mother and son. The son wasn't too bright. They would both get a bone, the mother would eat hers quickly and the son would doddle. She would then rush at the gate, barking furiously (at no one). The son would run up and start barking too. The mum would then double back and get his bone.

    Fair enough, she wasn't using sonar but it was "competitive interference among individuals of the same species."

    --
    I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.
    1. Re:dogs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      What an actual bitch!

    2. Re:dogs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is exactly what our two dogs do - they're not related, but the smarter terrier will go bark at the front window when the dumb spanial is eating, then run back and gobble some food while the spaniel barks for several minutes looking confused...

    3. Re:dogs by RobotBorg · · Score: 0

      The key part of the sentence is "this type". From TFA: Five years ago, Corcoran and Conner showed that tiger moths can jam the hunting sonar of brown bats. But this is the first time that this type of competitive interference among individuals of the same species has been discovered in animals, they say.

    4. Re:dogs by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      I have three Dobermans and I've seen the same behavior. One is a very large male and then we have an older female and a younger female.

      The younger female will run to a door or window and bark to get something from the male in a similar fashion.But he simply doesn't care because he'll just take the bone away from her when he gets back.

      The younger female will bark insistently at the older female until she gets annoyed and walks away from what ever it is she has. This sometimes works with the male. But usually he gets annoyed and rolls her end over end.

      The older female doesn't really care if the younger female barks at anything. She just assumes it's nothing. But if the male barks, she comes running right away. It's a pretty funny dynamic.

    5. Re:dogs by tibit · · Score: 1

      Wake me up when your Dobermans emit electromagnetic radiation that confuses the other's visual system. Because that's what bats do, except they do it via acoustic emissions and they target acoustic visualization of their competitor. The bats seem to do what our early electronic countermeasure/warfare systems did, except that they use ionics instead of electronics, and they transduce into the mechanical waves, not electromagnetic ones.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    6. Re:dogs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TIL moths and bats are the same species

    7. Re:dogs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We had a president like that a while back. Someone said, "WMD in Iraq" and he practically peed on the carpet.

    8. Re:dogs by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      I was replying to dhammabum. Not TFA. Which I also understood, but thanks for expounding on TFS.

  6. Ultrasonic c**kblockers?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ultrasonic c**kblockers?? who could have imagined that...

  7. EVERYONE does this! by deadweight · · Score: 1

    What planet are these scientists from? My two dogs and one cat are always scheming to take treats from each other.

    1. Re: EVERYONE does this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope you work on something important, because you clearly understand the difference between anthropomorphism and evidence.

    2. Re: EVERYONE does this! by deadweight · · Score: 1

      It is interesting that they use their sonar, but the idea that like-species animals compete and trick each other for food in only novel to someone who has never taken care of any animals ever. I know of a horse that would nose the latch open on the other horse's stalls. They would be like FREE AT LAST and run around while this smarter horse ate their food. In other news, for human operated or natural radar/sonar, you switch to shorter more frequent pulses to get better bearing and distance information when close to a target. Some bat somewhere was bright enough to figure out when he heard another bat do that there was food over there and fast forward hundreds of thousands of years worth of smarter better fed bats being more successful......well here we are writing about them.

    3. Re: EVERYONE does this! by Technician · · Score: 1

      One item that is a possibility wasn't mentioned. It could be simply collison avoidance instead of jamming. Fear of a high speed collsision would make most any animal pause. Is it loss of targeting, or avoiding a high speed crash?

      --
      The truth shall set you free!
    4. Re: EVERYONE does this! by deadweight · · Score: 1

      Bat A finds a bug and switches to a higher PRF to home in for the kill. Bat B hears this and heads over there, also switching to a higher PRF for close in work. It may have been an unintended consequence at first, but bat A loses lock with the second bat coming in on high PRF. This is a successful hunting strategy because you can do less work and let bat A find the bug and you just home in for the kill. Add a ton of evolution and .........here we are. Before the literal minded get their panties all twisted up, I KNOW the bats are not literally planning this out like a cold war sonar operator and I KNOW that the sonar term for PRF is PRR, but I spent many years as a radar tech so I go with what I know ;)

    5. Re: EVERYONE does this! by tibit · · Score: 1

      What the bats do is a ionic-based equivalent of electronic warfare/electronic countermeasures that the modern military uses. Competing for food is one thing, but the fact that they do it in a way that is, physically, similar to what we do when we protect ourselves from other human predators in their vehicles of various sort - that's the big thing here.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    6. Re: EVERYONE does this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In these context it's usually acceptable to assume the researcher is referring to not human animals. If they didn't the headline would read New Type Of Behavior Discovered.

      Your story with the horse is another example of anthropomorphism. You are suggesting intent to describe the behavior of a single animal. Is opening the gate to gain access to feed a sponatiously learned behavior in older horses, or is it better explained by operant conditioning. I think most animal behavior experts would agree with the latter.

      This behavior, unlike your examples, appears to have been selected for in the population. That is what makes the article interesting.

    7. Re: EVERYONE does this! by deadweight · · Score: 1

      I have to say bullshit to this "operant conditioning" crap that makes it seems like all animals are unfeeling robots that just simulate thought and emotion. Horse A is smarter than the average and knows how to open his latch. Maybe the FIRST time he let another horse out was just screwing around, but as soon as he learned horse B would take off and run around leaving his food unguarded, he was all over that plan!

    8. Re: EVERYONE does this! by deadweight · · Score: 1

      EDIT: I am well aware that ONE animal inventing a way to trick one other animal is not what the bats do.They have evolved to compete in this way across their species, not just as a one-off experiment. That said, the idea that animals use whatever they have to trick others out of their food is incredibly common and seen by anyone dealing with groups of them.

    9. Re: EVERYONE does this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Congratulations! You just provided an example of operant conditioning.

    10. Re: EVERYONE does this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great, so document one and publish it. So far you have failed to provide even one example.

    11. Re: EVERYONE does this! by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Bat A finds a bug and switches to a higher PRF to home in for the kill. Bat B hears this and heads over there, also switching to a higher PRF for close in work. It may have been an unintended consequence at first, but bat A loses lock with the second bat coming in on high PRF. This is a successful hunting strategy because you can do less work and let bat A find the bug and you just home in for the kill. Add a ton of evolution and .........here we are. Before the literal minded get their panties all twisted up, I KNOW the bats are not literally planning this out like a cold war sonar operator and I KNOW that the sonar term for PRF is PRR, but I spent many years as a radar tech so I go with what I know ;)

      Apparently vultures do the same thing - they actually find eagles hunting, and when the eagle finds prey, the vultures rapidly swoop in on the eagle's position. End result is the committee (venue, or volt) of vultures end up forming a wake on the eagle's prey, chasing the eagle away.

      So now you have a wake of vultures feeding, the eagle who found them chased out and standing on the sidelines as their meal was stolen from them.

      (And seriously, why are there so many words to describe a group of vultures? A group is a committee, venue or volt, when they feed on the ground it's a wake, and a flock in flight is a kettle)

    12. Re: EVERYONE does this! by deadweight · · Score: 1

      Perhaps by the loosest definition. If I find a good coffee shop on 4th street on Monday and go back on Tues-Friday is that operant conditioning? I guess I have Skinner boxes and rats getting shocked in my mind whenever I hear the term.

    13. Re: EVERYONE does this! by deadweight · · Score: 1

      Also only some types of vultures have good noses. The other ones will watch the good-nose species and follow them if they see them head off for something smelly.

  8. Bats are interesting creatures by Peter+Simpson · · Score: 1

    Even better -- they eat mosquitos. Something else that should endear them to us.

    1. Re:Bats are interesting creatures by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Pros and Cons with bats. Yes, they hoover up mosquitos and provide guano for mining/harvesting (fertilizer). But, they can also carry numerous diseases; being flying mammals and all. Just keep your distance and all is well with bats.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:Bats are interesting creatures by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      This is GOOD news, not bad news. Just frame the question this way: "Why are bats, being mammals that are not that genetically different to ourselves, able to host radically infectious diseases that they do not themselves catch?" If we can figure that out, there may be some big cures in the offing.

    3. Re:Bats are interesting creatures by PhilHibbs · · Score: 1

      Because their immune systems have got used to the pathogen, and ours haven't? We carry plenty of diseases that our ancestors would have died of, but we've evolved to survive them. There's no silver bullet here.

    4. Re:Bats are interesting creatures by deadweight · · Score: 1

      They DO catch rabies and it kills them. They also apparently catch Ebola, but it is not fatal to them. I think pretty much every disease out there is mild in some species, severe in others, and non existant in yet others. This is not really new or unique to bats.

    5. Re:Bats are interesting creatures by Immerman · · Score: 2

      Not really - every organism plays host to numerous relatively benign microorganisms, the interesting bit is that they can occasionally stumble upon a way to survive in other host species. Once they make such a jump the fact that some of their "benign to organism A" behavior wreaks havoc with organism B is only to be expected. Hell, you yourself host numerous gut bacteria that are essential to your continued survival, but if they made it into your bloodstream would cause a potentially fatal infection.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    6. Re:Bats are interesting creatures by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      So...they save you from malaria but you catch Ebola instead?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  9. That's Ionic Warfare for you by tibit · · Score: 1

    The humans do it through electronic warfare. The bats do it through ionic warfare. The mammals must all think the same, even if we don't call it thinking ;)

    --
    A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    1. Re:That's Ionic Warfare for you by deadweight · · Score: 1

      I don't think ionic means what you think it means unless the bats got some ozone generators off of Amazon to clean the cave odors up.

    2. Re:That's Ionic Warfare for you by tibit · · Score: 1

      The adjective "electronic" in "electronic warfare" refers to the conduction mode used in the circuitry. Living things don't use electronic conduction, but ionic conduction. Thus the relevant term becomes "ionic warfare", even if perhaps "ionic countermeasures" might be just as appropriate.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    3. Re:That's Ionic Warfare for you by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      If you want to get pedantic, since chemistry is also involved, shouldn't it be neurotransmitter-ionic warfare?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:That's Ionic Warfare for you by tibit · · Score: 1

      Maybe, if you're after a tonguebreaker :)

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  10. Reading *WAY* tou much into... by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

    And anthropomorphizing on top of it all.

    Look until we can find a way to clearly communicate with bats, or any other species other than other humans, and that is a stretch at times, I ain't drinking this particular glass of cool-aid.

    Having been a SONAR technician and having used some of the coolest acoustic toys ever made, I think a more likely conclusion might be:

    I find that in a group of bats trying to home in one a single insect they frequently target the same insect and interference patterns are formed causing one or more of the bats acoustic homing to be distorted.

    --
    Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!