Scientists have found out why bats do not collide with each other in the dark

Japanese scientists studied the behavior of bats and found out how they manage to avoid collisions with each other during flights in the pack in conditions of total darkness inside the cave, the Asahi newspaper reports.

Until now, it was only known that these animals have a sort of built-in locator that helps them navigate at night and in confined spaces, but how this mechanism works with a large population of individuals was not clear.

During the experiment, scientists installed miniature microphones on the wings of bats. As it turned out, being alone, mice emit sounds of the same frequency, but when in the group each individual "speaks" at its frequency.

This helps them avoid the effect of a "cocktail party", when the crowd simultaneously talks in one place and the noise merges into one stream, strongly pressing on the eardrums. Due to their natural characteristics, bats, unlike people, do not lose their self-control and retain the ability to navigate in space due to sound signals.

According to scientists, such mechanisms of interaction in the group can be used in the future in robotics. "The physiology of the behavior of these animals should help in the development of androids and teaching them to avoid collisions with each other," said one of the participants in the project, Shizuko Hiryu.

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