Optic and echo-acoustic flow interact in bats
Optic and echo-acoustic flow interact in bats
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DOI：
10.1242/jeb.195404
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发表时间：
2019-03-01
影响因子：
2.8
通讯作者：
Firzlaff, Uwe
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Kugler, Kathrin;Luksch, Harald;Firzlaff, Uwe
众所周知，回声定位蝙蝠在完全黑暗的环境中飞行和觅食，利用它们主动发出的叫声的回声来导航和探测猎物。然而，在昏暗的光线条件下，许多蝙蝠也可以依靠视觉。许多飞行动物被证明是通过光流信息导航的，最近，蝙蝠被证明利用回声流在黑暗的栖息地导航。在这里，我们向蝙蝠展示了变色的竹口蝙蝠，在明亮的栖息地，自我运动诱导的光流很强，光流和回声流相互作用来引导导航。与光流相比，回声-声流显示出惊人的强大效应。因此，我们展示了视觉和回声定位这两种遥远的空间感觉之间的多模式相互作用，这种组合几乎只存在于蝙蝠和齿鲸身上。我们的结果强调了融合来自不同感官系统的信息在感官专业动物中的重要性，以在困难的条件下成功导航和狩猎。
Echolocating bats are known to fly and forage in complete darkness, using the echoes of their actively emitted calls to navigate and to detect prey. However, under dim light conditions many bats can also rely on vision. Many flying animals have been shown to navigate by optic flow information and, recently, bats were shown to exploit echoacoustic flow to navigate through dark habitats. Here, we show for the bat Phyllostomus discolor that, in lighted habitats where self-motioninduced optic flow is strong, optic and echo-acoustic flow interact to guide navigation. Echo-acoustic flow showed a surprisingly strong effect compared with optic flow. We thus demonstrate multimodal interaction between two far-ranging spatial senses, vision and echolocation, available in this combination almost exclusively in bats and toothed whales. Our results highlight the importance of merging information from different sensory systems in a sensory-specialist animal to successfully navigate and hunt under difficult conditions.