Natures wonders: baby bats learn navigation (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 08, 2021, 14:49 (871 days ago) @ dhw

Moms move them early:

https://www.science.org/content/article/baby-bats-learn-navigate-hitching-ride-mom?utm_...

"You might think fruit bat mothers would leave their helpless babies back in the cave when they embark on nightly foraging trips. Instead, they drop the youngsters in a nearby tree, The New York Times reports. This process prepares the young bats to navigate solo, researchers report in Current Biology. Scientists attached GPS devices to mother and baby Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) in a cave outside Tel Aviv, Israel, to track the bats’ movements. They found that mothers left the cave carrying their infants before dropping the pups at “nursery” trees near the cave entrance and picking them up on the way back. When the pups reached about 10 weeks of age, the mothers would leave without them. The young bats would then make a solo trip from the cave mouth to the nursery tree and begin their exploration of the wider world using that tree as a base. This means the pups somehow learn to navigate to their nursery tree while hanging upside down from their mothers, the researchers conclude."

Comment: more research is needed to see how they learn.