手机APP下载

您现在的位置: 首页 > 在线广播 > 科学美国人 > 科学美国人科学系列 > 正文

社交关系对蝙蝠成功捕猎的重要性

来源:可可英语 编辑:aimee   可可英语APP下载 |  可可官方微信:ikekenet
  


扫描二维码可进行跟读训练
  下载MP3到电脑  [F8键暂停/播放]   批量下载MP3到手机
pBOcL+^m~Y*

s))Xjp1Pc]-[I*9CkdHk

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm JasonGoldman.
Each night, small groups of a species called velvety free-tailed bats emerge from their roosts in the Panamanian rain forests to hunt for their insect prey using echolocation.
"When bats are hunting, especially when they're in open areas, they produce two really distinct call types. So they have their 'search-phase' calls when they're just scanning the environment. And then they have 'feeding buzzes' when they actually detect prey, like an insect swarm."
Jenna Kohles, a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.
Both types of calls are typically too high-pitched for us to hear. But other bats can eavesdrop on those feeding buzzes and use them as a cue for finding food. And it's always been assumed that the other calls, search-phase calls, don't include that kind of social information. But Kohles and her team wondered if search-phase calls might also be social and help bats stick together in the dark.
"This is why we then tested first whether these echolocation calls they produce when they're scanning the environment contain information about a bat's identity, like in the form of an individual signature. And then, more importantly, we wanted to test whether bats can actually use this information to discriminate between different individuals, just using these search-phase echolocation calls."

~=J@&LHk(GMYwp,V

蝙蝠.jpg
The researchers captured wild bats and exposed them to a particular call over and over again until they became bored and stopped reacting. Then the researchers played the same type of call but recorded from a different bat. If the bats reacted, it means that they noticed that the identity of the caller had changed.
And that's exactly what happened, which suggests that some kind of individual signature is encoded within search-phase calls. The results are in the journal Behavioral Ecology.
Many other animals that hunt in groups use vocalizations to keep connected. But bats already invest most of their vocal resources in echolocation for hunting. So it appears that these bats have figured out how to accomplish both tasks—hunting and coordination—using a single type of vocalization.
"Bats can use this in a social strategy to forage within hearing distance of particular individuals to potentially find food faster or to find food more predictably."
Kohles says that this finding offers a new way to think about the evolution of social communication in bats—and that we may be underestimating the role of relationships in bats' success at hunting.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Jason Goldman.

N(hHYZv&iQ1Z[

G&0pSV*+KtFo~^nC

Q+i-x65.wjV.2[3Zxn[qsy59#]rz]jc[5zsgpTIX

重点单词   查看全部解释    
assumed [ə'sju:md]

想一想再看

adj. 假装的;假定的

 
ecology [i:'kɔlədʒi]

想一想再看

n. 生态学

 
social ['səuʃəl]

想一想再看

adj. 社会的,社交的
n. 社交聚会

 
environment [in'vaiərənmənt]

想一想再看

n. 环境,外界

 
predictably

想一想再看

adv. 可预言地

 
accomplish [ə'kɔmpliʃ]

想一想再看

vt. 完成

联想记忆
eavesdrop ['i:vzdrɔp]

想一想再看

vi. 偷听

联想记忆
strategy ['strætidʒi]

想一想再看

n. 战略,策略

 
institute ['institju:t]

想一想再看

n. 学会,学院,协会
vt. 创立,开始,制

联想记忆
emerge [i'mə:dʒ]

想一想再看

vi. 浮现,(由某种状态)脱出,(事实)显现出来

联想记忆

发布评论我来说2句

    最新文章

    可可英语官方微信(微信号:ikekenet)

    每天向大家推送短小精悍的英语学习资料.

    添加方式1.扫描上方可可官方微信二维码。
    添加方式2.搜索微信号ikekenet添加即可。