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One morning in the Panamanian rainforest, a small fruit bat swarmed its rival. odds did not seem in his favor.
The winged mammal, Seba’s short-tailed bat, weighed about half an ounce. But its six rivals, the tassel-lipped bats, were twice as heavy and occupied the covered corner where the little bat wanted to perch. Worse still, larger bats have been known to feed on small animals such as frogs, katydids, and smaller bats, including Seba’s short-tailed bats.
None of this impressed Seba’s short-tailed bat that kept screaming, flapping its wings and smacking its body at larger bats, one of which was slapped more than 50 times in the face.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said behavioral biologist Ahana Aurora Fernandez of the Natural History Museum in Berlin, who studied the bats’ record but was not involved in the research that produced it. Dr. “Six against one stick,” Fernandez said. “She shows no fear.”
The little bat’s fight paid off as the big bats ran away. The corner is clear, Seba’s short-tailed bat has entered, and a minute later his female friend, who has been watching the fight indifferently, joins in.
This fun-sized fight and two similar bat bullying events in other roosts have been observed by Mariana Muñoz-Romo, a biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and colleagues who monitor the sexual preferences of larger tassel-lipped bats. In an article published in the journal March Behaviour, asked how often smaller bats antagonize larger bats. Why choose a fight when it comes to risking defeat?
The researchers initially set out to study fringed-lipped bats. newly discovered rubbing a sticky, fragrant substance on their arms to potentially attract mates. Animals also have an impressive appetite and have been observed eating rather large frogs.
“Sometimes they take a nap while the frog is hanging out of its mouth, and then they wake up and continue eating,” said Rachel Page, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and author of the paper.
Fringed-lipped bats have never been seen eating Seba’s short-tailed bat. However, Dr. Muñoz-Romo noted that a previous report of an abandoned house being taken over by tassel-lipped bats includes the skeletal remains of Seba’s short-tailed bats below.
Seba’s short-tailed bats are common in Central and South America. The small size of males does not prevent them from being aggressive. Bats prefer to roost in sheltered craters on the ceilings of tropical caves, said Maria Sagot, a behavioral ecologist at SUNY Oswego. Not involved in the new study, Dr. “Groups often live in these holes,” Sagot said. “They usually fight to get a good position on those holes.” Men also fight to protect their female mates’ harems from other males, she added.
Male Seba’s short-tailed bats have a repertoire of climbing maneuvers along their wings. First, they vocalize or shake them, trying to scare others from afar. They then slap other bats in the face with their wingtips, flinging their bodies and biting them – the same tactics Seba’s short-tailed bat uses against its tassel-lipped opponents. The authors hypothesize that this innate aggression may have caused the little bat to attack its larger neighbors in defense of its female mate.
Another question has to do with the bat-fight’s reward: a corner in the square concrete perch where the researchers studied them. Dr. “You have four corners inside,” Muñoz-Romo said. “Why that corner if there are three other people in there?”
The researchers hypothesize that perhaps the coveted corner’s microclimate makes it more drafty, darker, or more sheltered. Dr. “We speculate a lot about what makes a roost attractive to bats,” Fernandez said, adding that they generally don’t accept artificial roosts.
The authors’ final hypothesis speculates that Seba’s short-tailed bat may have launched a preemptive attack. “Maybe these guys were just being too touchy to be like, ‘Don’t even choose us. We won’t be easy prey for you,'” said Dr. Page.
Dr. The researchers hope to figure out whether these fights were the majority of Seba’s short-tailed bats or just a few aggressive males, Page said.
While the video shows Seba’s short-tailed bat “absolutely annoying” and tassel-lipped bats “super peaceful”, Dr. Muñoz-Romo noted that the previously unseen dynamics could give the smaller attacker a reason to be angry. Perhaps Seba’s short-tailed bats perched in the corner before larger tassel-lipped bats took over.
“Who comes first?” he asked. “Who is displacing whom?”
Thanks to the crusade’s perfect timing, Seba’s short-tailed bat wasn’t in danger of being swallowed: It was 10 a.m. and the predatory bats had returned from a night of feasting, but he might not have known it.
Dr. “Imagine having to eat a large pizza after eating everything for hours,” Muñoz-Romo said.
Rescued by the full bellies of his enemies, the little bat groomed himself and quickly fell asleep, resting his wings for when he would have to slap again.
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