Thieving Bats Employ Sonar Jamming to Steal Meals

Imagine that you're at a baseball game and your favorite player in the whole league has just chunked a foul ball your way. At that very moment, dozens of other fans are raising their mitts and bear hands in the hopes of catching that ball, but wouldn't it be cool if you could throw off their aim and take the prize for yourself?

That's apparently what bats do every night, sabotaging each others' sonar's in order to get at the best insect meals on wings.

Contrary to popular belief, bats are not actually blind. They simply use sonar to pinpoint their prey in midflight, making snagging them out of the air significantly easier. Researchers have long known that oftentimes this means of echolocation  can be disputed by other bats' sonar. However, they had always assumed that this was just an unfortunate mistake that occurs when two bats are flying too close together. In-fact, it has been observed that bats will even use different frequencies to hunt, as to not clash sonar signals.

Now a new study of Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) has revealed that these seemingly innocent little hunters may actually be intentionally sabotaging one another while they hunt for the tastiest insects.

The study was recently published in the journal Science, and it details how researchers identified a type of sonar signal that appears designed to maximally disrupt another bat's echolocation.

"For this type of jamming, the interfering sound needs to overlap the echoes in time and frequency," researcher Aaron Corcoran of Johns Hopkins University, explained to New Scientist.

Corcoran says that this type of signal is unique in its ability to disrupt, while accidental jamming simply occurs when two bats happen to use the same frequency.

"This jamming signal covers all the frequencies used by the other bat, so there's no available frequency to shift to," he said, meaning that this is clearly intentional work.

The researchers adds that bats might do this because they traditionally roost in huge numbers together. While a big crowd may imply cooperation and comradery, there is only so much food that can go around.

We may not hear it, but every night above our heads, countless bats are playing an intensely competitive game of high stakes, just to grab a bite to eat.