Bats are one of the most misunderstood animals. Their nocturnal nature and association with vampires have given them an undeservedly spooky reputation. However, bats have complex behaviors and exhibit traits that may surprise you.
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick answer to your question: Bats display intelligent, social, and affectionate behaviors. They live in colonies and have strong family bonds. Some bats even exhibit playfulness.
In this comprehensive article, we will explore the latest scientific research on bat personality and behavior. We will look at how bats display intelligence, emotion, social bonds, communication, and playfulness that gives insight into their inner world.
Bats Show Signs of Intelligence
Problem-Solving Abilities
Bats exhibit impressive problem-solving skills in laboratory experiments. For example, in one study, Egyptian fruit bats were presented with a puzzle box containing food. The bats quickly learned to open the box through trial-and-error and observation of other bats.
Amazingly, the bats continued to open the box even when the researchers changed how it worked, demonstrating flexible thinking. Bats have also shown the ability to use tools, such as adaptively shaping leaves into “basket scoops” to collect water.
Social Learning
Many bat species live in large social groups and often learn essential skills like finding food, avoiding predators, and raising young through social interaction. Mother bats teach their pups food-handling techniques and navigation skills. Bats also learn which foods to eat by observing other bats’ food choices.
Some research suggests young bats preferentially learn from older, more experienced bats. The transmission of information between generations may allow bat colonies to adapt to changing environments over time.
Navigation and Memory Skills
Bats navigate and find food in the dark using echolocation. They produce ultrasonic calls and interpret the returning echoes to build a mental map of their surroundings. This requires excellent spatial memory, as bats must remember landscape features over long distances.
Migrating bats have been recorded navigating hundreds of kilometers to their seasonal roosts. Bats also regularly find their way back to their own roosts and can recognize individual humans by acoustic signals alone.
Their impressive navigation abilities rely on mental maps and spatial memory rather than vision.
Bats Have Complex Social Lives
Tight Family Bonds
Bats form close-knit family groups consisting of females and their offspring. Mothers invest significant time and energy raising their young, with the help of mature female bats called “aunts” who assist with caring for the pups (1).
Tight family bonds are essential for bats due to their need to care for altricial young, meaning that bats have helpless offspring that require almost around-the-clock care and nursing until they grow into juveniles ready to fly on their own. The whole bat family plays a role in nurturing new pups.
Colony Membership
In addition to family groups, most bats are highly social creatures that live in large colonies numbering in the millions in some cases! Different bat species exhibit varying levels of sociality, with differences in behaviors like group foraging, roost selection, hibernation, and migration (2).
For example, the hoary bat tends to be more solitary, while Mexican free-tailed bats crowd together in enormous colonies. Community life provides benefits like predator vigilance, mating access, and information exchange.
Colonies also enable behaviors like cooperative pup care and food-patch sharing (3).
Altruistic Behaviors
Research shows bats routinely perform selfless acts of generosity like regurgitating blood to feed roost-mates and adopting additional pups despite the added burden that representation (4). In one amazing case, a adult bat returned over and over again to help rescue pups trapped under wildly careening sticks.
Scientists speculate the altruism seen in bats and other highly social mammals evolved due to complex factors like inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism.
Bats Exhibit Emotions
Joy and Playfulness
Just like humans, bats have the capacity to experience positive emotions like joy and playfulness. Mother bats have been observed playing with their pups by wrestling gently with them. Some species of bats even engage in acrobatics and aerobatics when flying together in a behavior known as bat roosting.
This behavior demonstrates their ability to feel joy and playfulness. Bats have also been seen playing with non-bat objects like balls, showing an innate curiosity and fun-loving attitude. Such playful behaviors are believed to strengthen social bonds between bats.
Researchers have discovered that the brains of bats contain neural circuits associated with joy and social play. When young pups engage in play fighting and chasing with adult bats, it activates neurons in the amygdala which produce feelings of happiness.
The frequency of joyful play behaviors has been shown to peak during developmental stages when it plays an important role in their growth. So while humans often perceive bats as mysterious creatures of the night, they share our capacity for experiencing joy.
Grief and Distress
Bats have complex social relationships and strong maternal bonds similar to humans. When a bat suffers the loss of a close companion, they exhibit signs of grief and distress. Mother bats whose pups have died have been observed carrying around the dead corpse and trying to revive it.
This denial behavior demonstrates the intense grief they feel. Even solitary bat species have displayed distressed behaviors when a close roostmate dies. They may refuse to eat or engage in usual activities. Their brain waves also change, reflecting a negative emotional state.
In lab experiments, bats have been observed trying to help trapped roostmates, even sharing food with them. This empathy shows bats understand when others are in distress. Dramatic changes in bats’ ultrasonic vocalizations also indicate grieving after a loss.
While grief and distress can be difficult to scientifically quantify in animals, bats clearly exhibit mourning behaviors analogous to humans. Their complex social cognition allows bats to form close relationships and mourn when those companions are lost.
Bats Communicate in Sophisticated Ways
Vocalizations
Bats use vocalizations for a variety of purposes, including communication with other bats. Their vocal repertoire includes both audible sounds that humans can hear, as well as ultrasonic calls that are above our range of hearing.
Different species emit distinct call types that can convey information about their identity, location, and intent. For example, Mexican free-tailed bats have over a dozen different call types for activities like defending territories, navigating, and mother-infant interactions.
The diverse vocalizations in the ultrasonic range are especially important for echolocation while hunting prey. Bats can even alter some call parameters based on echo feedback, demonstrating their ability to make adjustments during flight and pursuit.
Their sophisticated vocal communication is critical for bats’ complex social behaviors and survival.
Body Language
In addition to vocalizations, bats use body postures and movements to visually signal others. For example, folded ears can indicate aggression, while exposed teeth may signify a social display. Wing gestures like wing flicks can communicate territorial boundaries when patrolling.
Even while roosting in dense colonies, bats orient their bodies in relation to their neighbors, conveying social associations and relationships. Grooming behaviors like allopreening, where one bat grooms another, strengthens social bonds. Dramatic visual displays also play a role in mating rituals.
The expansive vocabularies of body language vary between species, but generally facilitate essential non-vocal communication in bat colonies.
Scent Marking
Scent marking with secretions like urine, feces, and glandular oils is another channel bats use to exchange information. By scent marking roost areas, foraging sites, or territorial boundaries, bats can signal occupancy and ownership to other bats.
Mothers may mark their pups, allowing recognition by scent. Certain glandular secretions may even indicate reproductive condition or social status within groups. Scent provides a persistent signal that bats can detect even when the depositor is no longer present.
Combined with vocalizations and body language, scents form a multimodal communication system suited to bats’ lifestyles and environments. Researchers continue working to better understand the nuances and complexity of bat communication systems.
Conclusion
In conclusion, scientific research continues to reveal the sophisticated inner lives of bats. While there is still much to learn, it is clear bats are highly intelligent, emotional, and social creatures.
Their strong family bonds, playful antics, and ability to navigate complex environments demonstrate advanced cognitive abilities. Bats deserve appreciation for their amazing abilities rather than fear based on superstition.
