Bulldog bats 'honk' on meeting strangers

London, June 11 (ANI): Bats use ultrasound to broadcast their identity to strangers, a new German research suggests.

Silke Voigt-Heucke of the Free University of Berlin conducted a study to find if bats could identify calls from other species.

She played pre-recorded calls to lesser bulldog bats, some made by individuals from the same species and some from different species, and then analysed their response.

The bats responded to all the calls; they nodded and yawned, regardless of whether these calls were from bats of the same colony or a different species.

However, they demonstrated more of the behaviour when the call came from a bat of the same species but one that lived in a different colony, reports the New Scientist.

Voigt-Heucke also identified a new ultrasonic call, made in response to strange individuals of the same species. She has labelled this the "honk".

The study has appeared in Animal Behaviour. (ANI)