Robot Bat Uncovers How Bats Hunt in Complete Darkness

Popular Science highlighted a University of Cincinnati study that used engineering-inspired biology to examine how bats find insects hiding on leaves in complete darkness. Associate Professor Dieter Vanderelst partnered with the Inga Geipel from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Herbert Peremans from the University of Antwerp on the project. They developed an autonomous robot bat that could find an insect hiding on a leaf quickly using only echolocation without having to scan every single leaf around it. Their results with the robot confirm what they've observed with real bats through firsthand observation at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Common big-eared bats have the ability, extremely rare among bats, to find insects hiding on leaves. Vanderelst said the bats take advantage of the specular reflection effect, in which noise bounces off a surface at the same angle that the sound strikes it. Vanderelst holds joint appointments in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science and College of Arts and Sciences. "Behavioral experiments had already suggested how these bats might solve the problem of finding prey-occupied leaves, but we wanted to know whether that explanation was actually sufficient to make the behavior work," Vanderelst told Popular Science. Read the Popular Science story. Featured image at top: UC Associate Professor Dieter Vanderelst is studying how some species of bats use echolocation to find prey hiding on leaves. Photo/Connor Boyle/UC Marketing + Brand