In the dark, bats identify each other by voice

Individual bats have the ability to tell the difference between other bats just by the sound of their voice, according to a study published in PLoS Computational Biology.

Researchers from the University of Tuebingen, Germany found that the greater mouse-eared bat could distinguish between their fellows’ echolocation calls. A subject bat was tested by having to select between two others depending on their calls. The subject bats chose correctly over 80 percent of the time.


The greater mouse-eared bat is native to Europe. Photo by: Manuel Warner.
"If you think of this in comparison with humans, it's like being able to recognize a person just by listening to the same one-syllable yell in different voices, " head of the study, Dr. Yossi Yovel told the BBC. "The bats learned the voice by listening to hundreds of very short 'yells', but they then were able to recognize an individual based on one single yell."

Researchers then produced a computer model that reproduced the recognition behavior displayed by the bats. The model suggests that the bat’s calls contain spectral energy distribution that is unique to every individual, allowing the bats to tell one another apart simply by listening.

CITATION: Yovel Y, Melcon ML, Franz MO, Denzinger A, Schnitzler H-U (2009) The Voice of Bats: How Greater Mouse-eared Bats Recognize Individuals Based on Their Echolocation Calls. PLoS Comput Biol 5(6): e1000400.

Taken from mongabay.com
June 08, 2009

The 4 rescued baby raccoons:

Proyecto Asis tends to sick, confiscated and abandoned animals, it is always available for advice and assistance to the general public and it has many animals at its rescue center that the dedicated members of staff and volunteers have saved and nursed back to health.


Last week, after celebrating Easter week, the rangers from The Children’s Eternal Rainforest, an organization dedicated to the protection of the nature in our area, found a happy man exhibiting 4 cute and small raccoons in the public bus, on the road to San José… He was really glad with his “souvenir” and his idea, probably, could be to negotiate it in the capital of our country. The rangers brought the baby animals to our Wild Animal Rescue Center and we are now working in their restoration. Our idea is to let them in the wild when possible, by the moment we are really busy with our new friends. It’s really sad, but many people do not realize that our responsibility is to keep of nature, not to abuse of it.

After holidays, many animal species (most of them parrots and parakeets) are taken from their habitat to a cage in the city. Nobody have the authority to commerce with nature, the freedom of the species has not price.


But there is a good new; you can make the difference now!. Start in your place, no matter where it is, protect your yard, your community, your country, doing so; you’ll be protecting the entire world.



Thanks on behalf of the nature!



Proyecto Asis