Owls are scared of bees, and bats seem to take advantage of this. Researchers have heard mouse-eared bats mimicking the buzz of bees and hornets to scare away predatory owls.
Danilo Russo at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy was first struck by the bizarre hum more than two decades ago while working with the bats as a PhD student. “I noticed that when we handled the bats to take them out of the net or process them, they buzzed like wasps or hornets,” says Russo. Only recently was he able to assemble the right group of researchers to investigate the phenomenon. to the hum of insects like bees and hornets.
Next, they played a series of sounds to eight barn owls and eight tawny owls, half of which were wild, and the other half captive-raised. Each owl heard four noises: a buzzing bat, a western honeybee, a European hornet and a non-buzzing bat vocalization.In all cases, the owls moved further away from the speaker when they heard a buzz. When the birds heard non-buzzing bat vocalizations, they approached the source of the sound.
While all owls were spooked by the buzzing sound, some birds recoiled more than others. The researchers suspect that the owls’ varied reactions may be linked to their prior experience, as the wild owls that could potentially have had previous encounters with stinging insects had the most dramatic responses.
Salser says he is curious to see if this mimicry wards off other avian predators in addition to owls. “Just because [the buzzes] work on owls, doesn’t mean they only work on owls.” He notes that if greater mouse-eared bats employ acoustic deception, others may do the same. “There’s so much diversity in bats, I’d be surprised if this was the only bat that’s using sound in this particular way,” says Salser.
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