The evening rush hour commute for greater mouse-tailed bats has surprisingly few midair collisions (marked in video). Starting from inside a cave where thousands of Rhinopoma microphyllum bats huddle during the day, the colony streams out a narrow exit to hunt in Israel’s Hula Valley. At the cave exit, bats fly so close that echolocation signals for detecting obstacles, each other and prey partially mask neighbors’ pings like the cacophony of a human cocktail party. As the colony streams into open air, however, bat-to-bat distance expands, and bats can hear themselves ping.
Video Credit: Yossi Yovel, Eran Amichai
