Acoustic mirrors as sensory traps for bats

Greif, Stefan; Zsebők, Sándor; Schmieder, Daniela Anna; Siemers, Björn M. (2017). Acoustic mirrors as sensory traps for bats. Science, 357(6355), pp. 1045-1047. American Association for the Advancement of Science 10.1126/science.aam7817

Text Greif_Sci2017.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (406kB)

Sensory traps pose a considerable and often fatal risk for animals, leading them to
misinterpret their environment. Bats predominantly rely on their echolocation system to forage, orientate, and navigate.We found that bats can mistake smooth, vertical surfaces as clear flight paths, repeatedly colliding with them, likely as a result of their acoustic mirror properties. The probability of collision is influenced by the number of echolocation calls and by the amount of time spent in front of the surface. The echolocation call analysis corroborates that bats perceive smooth, vertical surfaces as open flyways. Reporting on occurrences with different species in the wild, we argue that it is necessary to more closely monitor potentially dangerous locations with acoustic mirror properties (such as glass
fronts) to assess the true frequency of fatalities around these sensory traps.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

1 since deposited on 18 Apr 2018
0 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item