Bats: a Key for Saving Biodiversity
Project location: Italy, Abruzzo
Project start date: January 2002 -
Project end date: December 2003
Project number: 2001-03
Beneficiary: Centro Studi Ecologici Appenninici
Echolocation calls
When flying, the barbastelle (Barbastella barbastellus) often alternates between two different call structures, and the time-expanded signals sound like a peculiar 'chip-chop'.
The brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus) emits faint calls to approach its favourite prey, the tympanate moths (sensitive to bat ultrasonic calls), without alerting them. When the bat is very close to the moth, it stops echolocating and relies on passive listening to capture its prey: to detect even the faintest noise produced by the insect, these bats have very long ears. Because calls from long-eared bats are so faint, researchers often need to stay close to the bat to get good-quality recordings.