Gorongosa 2024-FULL-FINAL - Flipbook - Page 63
ZO OLOGY
|
GORONGOSA SPECIAL
Huó would set up devices to
record the bat all night and
hope it would call out.
“One thing that is interesting about primates is that they have developed this ability to warn other members of their group of different dangers
and they have different expressions of different signals to indicate what
type of danger that is,” Naskrecki said. “So, if it’s a snake, that will be one
signal, if it’s a leopard, that’s another signal. I thought, well, I bet you that
bats do the same thing. It’s just incredibly difficult to show it.”
Difficult because bats are skittish, often live in inaccessible areas, and
many species are mostly active at night. Further, the calls they emit—echolocation or social—are at frequencies too high for the weak human ear to
hear. “Every now and then you will hear a squeak,” Naskrecki said. “That
squeak is like a roar to them.”
Naskrecki’s instinct about social communication in bats coincided
with the ongoing research of Mirjam Knörnschild, an expert in the field
and a professor of evolutionary ethology at Humboldt University Berlin.
Naskrecki asked her to join Huó’s committee and she was glad to do so.
61
