Too early she saves a song dedicated to attracting females

Bats after birth sing like babies.. and later learn like men

Bats have throats like humans and start babbling about three weeks after they are born, and it lasts between seven and 10 weeks until it is time for them to be weaned.

archival

Some baby bats seem to be very talkative, and they resort to babbling, just like human babies.

All the children of the world go through this stage of intense pronunciation of meaningless pseudo-words, such as "gaga" and "bababa" and others... in order to learn to control their vocal system.

A study published two days ago in the prestigious journal "Science" shows that a type of bat found in Central America also resorts to this exercise, whose characteristics are similar to human babbling.

"Human babies seem to babble to interact with their parents on one hand, but also when they are alone, most likely just to explore their own voice, and this is also what is observed in this type of bat," explains study co-author Miriam Knorschild of the Natural History Museum in Berlin. ».

The researchers demonstrated that young bats learn very early on a six-syllable song that males use to attract females (just as men do). Baby bats “listen to the adult males singing, and then imitate that song,” explains Miriam Knorchild.

Bats communicate with each other using ultrasound, but they are also capable of making sounds that humans can hear.

"To our ears, it's like a high-pitched tweet," says a researcher who has been working on these bats since 2003.

This type of bat known as "Sacopteryx belliniata" has the peculiarity of not hiding in dark caves, but rather it stays on trees, and thus facilitates its free observation.

Researcher Ahana Fernandez, who also works for the Berlin Museum of Natural History, recorded the babbling sounds of 20 baby bats in Costa Rica and Panama between 2015 and 2016 and spent hours in the woods.

up to 43 minutes

These mammals, which have throats like humans, begin to babble about three weeks after their birth, and last between seven and 10 weeks until it is time for them to be weaned.

During this period, bats dedicate about 30% of their time during the day to this activity.

The babbling sessions last an average of seven minutes, according to the researchers' calculations.

But one was very long, lasting 43 minutes, and adult bats generally only take a few seconds to communicate.

Miriam Knorshield explains that "this is very special, and is not practiced by other bat species that have been studied so far."

She adds that these bats are "very talkative!"

These sounds were transformed into images called the spectrum.

The scholar explains that “each syllable has a very specific shape, which is therefore easy to identify with the naked eye.”

Analyzes were conducted for more than 55,000 syllables.

It is noted that the universally shared characteristics of babbling in human infants are found in bats.

This includes, for example, repetition and lack of meaning, in addition to the fact that these sounds follow a certain rhythm.

Moreover, as in humans, the learning curve is not linear.

Until the time of the young bats' weaning, they had not mastered all 25 syllables used by the adults, suggesting that they continue to learn them afterwards.

Song

Sobbing is only found in a very small number of other creatures, such as some birds, two types of marmoset, and perhaps also dolphins and beluga whales.

So why don't some animals need this learning step while others do?

The researcher says that "mobility and communication in a dark environment" appears to be an important factor.

But the complexity of the acoustic system also offers many possibilities, as is the case in humans, and therefore perhaps bats.

The babbling is only found in a very small number of creatures, including dolphins and beluga whales.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news