ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Fast sensory-motor reactions in echolocating bats to sudden changes during the final buzz and prey intercept.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 64 citations in OpenAlex.
- Echolocators Are Smaller Than Their Non-Echolocating Relatives: Agility Counts in Dark, Three-Dimensional Habitats.Integrative zoology · 2026Article
- Unpredictable prey motion shapes behavior across time scales.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Temporal Feasibility Constraints on Wingbeat-Call Synchrony in Actively Echolocating Bats.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Stereotyped active sensing in fast-diving echolocating bats.iScience · 2025Article
- Prey evasiveness and masking noise jointly promote the ultrahigh call rate in echolocating bats.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Fast vocal-motor tracking of escaping prey in echolocating bats.BMC biology · 2025Article
- PreyTouch: a touchscreen-based closed-loop system for studying predator-prey interactions.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Daubenton's bats maintain stereotypical echolocation behaviour and a lombard response during target interception in light.BMC zoology · 2024Article
- Article
- Sensory error drives fine motor adjustment.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Discriminating predation attempt outcomes during natural foraging using the post-buzz pause in the Japanese large-footed bat, Myotis macrodactylus.The Journal of experimental biology · 2022Article
- Hearing, echolocation, and beam steering from day 0 in tongue-clicking bats.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Echolocating toothed whales use ultra-fast echo-kinetic responses to track evasive prey.eLife · 2021Article
- Adaptive learning and recall of motor-sensory sequences in adult echolocating bats.BMC biology · 2021Article
- Hunting bats adjust their echolocation to receive weak prey echoes for clutter reduction.Science advances · 2021Article
- Faecal analyses and alimentary tracers reveal the foraging ecology of two sympatric bats.PloS one · 2020Article
- Avoidance of non-localizable obstacles in echolocating bats: A robotic model.PLoS computational biology · 2019Article
- Acoustic evaluation of behavioral states predicted from GPS tracking: a case study of a marine fishing bat.Movement ecology · 2019Article
- Aerodynamics of manoeuvring flight in brown long-eared bats (Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2018Article
- The evolution of anti-bat sensory illusions in moths.Science advances · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Echolocation is an active sense enabling bats and toothed whales to orient in darkness through echo returns from their ultrasonic signals. Immediately before prey capture, both bats and whales emit a buzz with such high emission rates (≥ 180 Hz) and overall duration so short that its functional significance remains an enigma. To investigate sensory-motor control during the buzz of the insectivorous bat Myotis daubentonii, we removed prey, suspended in air or on water, before expected capture. The bats responded by shortening their echolocation buzz gradually; the earlier prey was removed down to approximately 100 ms (30 cm) before expected capture, after which the full buzz sequence was emitted both in air and over water. Bats trawling over water also performed the full capture behavior, but in-air capture motions were aborted, even at very late prey removals (<20 ms = 6 cm before expected contact). Thus, neither the buzz nor capture movements are stereotypical, but dynamically adapted based on sensory feedback. The results indicate that echolocation is controlled mainly by acoustic feedback, whereas capture movements are adjusted according to both acoustic and somatosensory feedback, suggesting separate (but coordinated) central motor control of the two behaviors based on multimodal input. Bat echolocation, especially the terminal buzz, provides a unique window to extremely fast decision processes in response to sensory feedback and modulation through attention in a naturally behaving animal.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.