Research: Bats Use Light Polarization Pattern to Navigate
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Sabtu, 26 Juli 2014 11:30 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Belfast - A study published on the journal Nature Communication, July 22, has discovered that bats are using polarized sun lights as navigating aids. The mouse-eared bats (Myotis myotis) become the first mammal known to develop this ability.
The bats, using echolocation techniques to navigate, often fly hundreds of miles in a night to search for prey and returning home before sunrise to avoid predators. But this sense only reaches about 160 feet (50 meters), so the animals must be using another sense to see farther ahead, the researchers said.
Stefan Greif, a biologist from the Queen University, Belfast, North Ireland and his team studied the ability by showing 70 adult female bats' two types of polarization patterns at sunset. Then they were released at two different sites in Bulgaria at 1 a.m. — when no polarization was visible — about 12 to 16 miles (20 to 25 kilometers) from their roosts. The researchers attached tiny radio transmitters to the animals' backs in order to track their movement.
The bats, shown shifted polarized light, flew at the right angle to the direction of bats shown up shifted polarized light, suggesting they were using the polarization to guide their flight.
However, the researchers are unsure how the nocturnal creatures detect polarized light.
"We don't know which structure these bats might be using," study co-author Richard Holland, a zoologist also at Queen University Belfast, said as reported by Live Science.
NATURE | LIVESCIENCE | GABRIEL WAHYU TITIYOGA