The biological sonar system called echolocation is a powerful
tool for insect-hunting bats. Now an innovative experiment with
big brown bats suggests that young bats learn to use
echolocation by eavesdropping on the calls of their more-
experienced hunting companions, the BBC reports. Reporter
Victoria Gill said this is the first study to show that bats (at
least big browns [Eptesicus fuscus]) actively listen for the
echolocation calls of other bats in order to learn from them.
Such social learning has been confirmed in many mammals, but
until now it had not been clearly demonstrated in bats. A
University of Maryland team, led by graduate student Genevieve
Spanjer Wright, conducted the experiment in a flight cage,
tracking bats as they "hunted" a mealworm suspended on a string,
Gill reported. The results are published in the journal Animal
Behaviour. Spanjer Wright and her colleagues trained 12
"demonstrator bats" to catch the mealworm. By repeatedly
changing the worm's location, the bats had to use echolocati