Echolocation helps bats recognize each other

September 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists has found that a group of Great Tits in a cave in Hungary has acquired a new habit of eating hibernating common pipistrelle bats under harsh conditions of snow cover. Reports on the ingenuity of birds of the tit family in their search for food go as far back as the 1940s when it was observed that Blue Tits in the British Isles had learned how to open the aluminium tops of milk bottles left on doorsteps by milkmen to get at the cream that had formed on top of the milk.

August 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - It's not just humans who sing love ballads to woo their partners, for bats too sing when they indulge in sex, according to a new study. Researchers at Texas A and M University and the University of Texas at Austin are believed to be the first to decode the mysterious love sounds made by the winged creatures.

August 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The world's largest species of fruit bat, Pteropus vampyrus, could be driven to extinction in Peninsular Malaysia at the current hunting rate, scientists have warned. They say that around 22,000 of these bats, also known as "large flying fox", are legally hunted each year in Peninsular Malaysia, a level that is unsustainable based on their estimates of the number of bats in the country.

August 24th, 2009 LONDON - A research team led by Indian-origin scientist claims to have identified a cellular molecule that not only helps recognize viruses that cause respiratory problems but also direct cells to produce defensive immune response. Dr Santanu Bose and colleagues have identified a cellular molecule, called NOD2, that detects respiratory viruses and can instruct cells to defend against them.

August 16th, 2009 LONDON - Elephant hear using their feet, bats attract females by singing high-pitch songs, and mole rats use a form of Morse code to communicate-these are just few of the secret abilities some animals possess, revealed a new book. With the aid of modern technology and techniques, scientists are starting to uncover a multitude of secret abilities that animals have evolved to help them survive.

August 15th, 2009 LONDON - In a new research, scientists have discovered that the oddly-shaped skulls of the wrinkle-faced bat include jaws that are more powerful than not just other fruit bats but also much larger predatory bats, which need to be able to sink their teeth into tough hides. With a strangely naked face covered in skin flaps and a wide, foreshortened skull, the head of the rarely seen, fruit-eating, wrinkle-faced bat (has been an enigma to biologists for a long time.

August 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new fossil-bat discovery has revealed that a walking bat in New Zealand took its marching orders from a 20-mln-yr-old ancestor, which upends a theory that the lesser short-tailed bat evolved its walking preference independently. Since the bat's native habitat lacks predators, researchers reasoned that-much like flightless birds on isolated islands-the bat had adapted to its safer surroundings in part by walking.

July 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has found that a bizarre New Zealand bat that is as much at home walking four-legged on the ground as winging through the air had an Australian ancestor 20 million years ago with the same rare ability. The study was carried out by an international team of researchers led by Dr Suzanne Hand, a bat expert at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

July 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new research, s team of scientists has detected cones and their visual pigments in two flower-visiting species of bat, which has lead them to conclude that bats' eyes are adapted for both daylight and UV (Ultraviolet) vision. The research was conducted by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt and the University of Oldenburg, in Germany.

July 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has found out that moths can use ultrasound blasts to disrupt sonar from predatory bats, thus evading detection by the flying mammals. Bats emit high-pitched cries, then listen as the sound waves bounce off nearby objects-allowing the bats to find and eat tiny insects in the dark, among other things.

July 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have solved the mystery of a bat with an extraordinarily long nose, by determining that the creature uses its elongated nose to create a highly focused sonar beam, which helps in the detection of its environment. The bat, called the Bourret's horseshoe bat (known scientifically as the "Rhinolophus paradoxolophus," meaning paradoxical crest), has a nose that is roughly 9 millimeters in length.

July 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at North Carolina State University are developing robotic bats with muscles made of metal that offer increased maneuverability and performance, which might represent the next generation of remote controlled flyers. "Small flyers, or micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs), have garnered a great deal of interest due to their potential applications where maneuverability in tight spaces is necessary," said researcher Gheorghe Bunget.

July 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Tiny flying machines can survey anything from indoors to collapsed buildings. Now researchers are mimicking nature's small flyers - and developing robotic bats that offer increased manoeuvrability and performance.

July 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - An Indian-origin researcher in Texas has announced a discovery that may lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history-significantly longer lifespans. Writing about the finding in The FASEB Journal, VA Medical Center's Professor Asish Chaudhuri says that proper protein folding over time in long-lived bats explains why they live significantly longer than other mammals of comparable size, such as mice.

June 5th, 2009 LONDON - Bats can recognise one another by the nature of their sounds, says a new study carried out in Germany. The study, conducted by the University of Tubingen, explains how bats use echolocation for more than just finding out where they are.