Big brown bats are challenged by acoustically-guided flights through a circular tunnel of hoops.

ABSTRACT: Mines and caves provide essential roosting places for bats, but often they are obstructed to prevent entry by humans. To allow bats to access their roosts, metal corrugated culvert pipes are sometimes installed. Wildlife surveys indicate, however, that bats may abandon caves having corrugated culvert entrances. Culverts may be confusing to bats due to the complex patterns of echoes returned by the regular, ring-like corrugations. We tested the hypothesis that a circular tunnel composed of successive hoops is difficult for big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) to navigate. Experiments challenged bats with flights through a tunnel of round plastic hoops or a corridor flanked left and right by rows of plastic hanging chains. The bats swerved sideways and left the pathway on more flights in the ho

SUBMITTER: Simmons JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6972939 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature