Sep 7, 2017
Bats slam into buildings because they can't 'see' them
“I heard a thud behind me,” says zoologist Stefan Greif, recalling the first time he noticed a bat crash into a metal plate propped up against a wall in his lab’s flight chamber. Now, in a study published on 7 September in Science1, a team led by Greif — of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany — explains why bats often slam into vertical panes, such as glass windows.These smooth surfaces interfere with bats’ echolocation by reflecting sound away from the creatures.
Greif, S., Zsebők, S., Schmieder, D. & Siemers, B. M. Science 357, 1045–1047 (2017)
