New evidence has been released regarding the navigational skills of bats as new research shows they use polarized light to help them find their way around at night.
In a study published this week in the journal Nature Communications, researchers outlined how greater mouse-eared bats were shown to react the way the sun's light is scattered in the atmosphere at sunset in order to calibrate their internal magnetic compass.
A huge number of species, like bees, fish, and dung beetles, use this system as a form of compass, but bats are the first mammals to do so, according to researchers.
The researchers remain puzzled as to how bats achieve this feat.
The discovery adds to a list of systems used by bats to find their way around at night, like echolocation or sonar, the sun, stars and the Earth's magnetic field, as well as smells and sight.
'"Every night through the spring, summer and autumn, bats leave their roosts in caves, trees and buildings to search for insect prey," said Stefan Greif of Queen's University Belfast, lead author of the study, according to the Press Association. "They might range hundreds of kilometres in a night, but return to their roosts before sunrise to avoid predators. But, until now, how they achieved such feats of navigation wasn't clear,"
"'Most people are familiar with bats using echolocation to get around. But that only works up to about 50 metres (164 feet), so we knew they had to be using another of their senses for longer-range navigation," he added.
Scientists were able to show 70 adult, female mouse-eared bats one of two different types of polarization patterns at sunset, according to the study.
They were then released in Bulgaria around 12-15 miles from their home roost one morning when no polarization was visible.
Bats that had been shown a shifted pattern of polarized light flew off in a direction at right angles from those that weren't shown a sifted pattern, according to the study.
Dr. Richard Holland, of Queen's University, and co-author of the report, said the findings would help efforts to stem the decline of bat species all over Europe.
He added that wind turbines have seriously harmed bat populations.
"We know that bats must be 'seeing' the turbines, but it seems that the air pressure patterns around working turbines give the bats what's akin to the bends," Holland said, according to the Press Association. "It's most common in migratory species, with around 300,000 bats affected every year in Europe alone. You just find bats dead at the bottom of these turbines. One option is to reduce turbine activity during times of peak migration."
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