Really enjoyed being a guest on the Acoustic World Podcast and talking with Marco Maiolini about bat communication.
Acoustic World brings together scholars across disciplines to explore how animals produce, use, and experience sound.
open.spotify.com/episode/2A93...
New paper alert:
>80k nacelle-height recordings and stereo-thermal 3D tracks show that bats sing in the rotor-swept zone and circle turbine nacelles. We need smarter, species-sensitive curtailment that aligns both climate and biodiversity goals.
#Bats #Conservation
🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s420...
Close-up of several greater mouse-eared bats hanging together in a roost, with one bat in the center facing the camera, mouth open and teeth visible while others cluster around it.
Male bats have a lot to say – and every voice is unique! 🦇
A new study reveals 14 distinct call types in male greater mouse-eared bats, allowing us to distinguish individuals acoustically and helping to better protect their mating roosts. 🌍
🔗 bit.ly/fighting-and...
@berlinbatlab.bsky.social
Coming soon! The Social Lives of Bats edited by Christina R. Stanley 🦇
This ground-breaking book offers unique insights into bat society and relationships, from familial bonds, to friendship, group dynamics and even altruism.
Learn more and preorder your copy ➡️ https://tinyurl.com/c97wpk7e
New study alert! Female Daubenton’s bats foraging at the cold edge of their range take turns using the same feeding spots at different times of night, thus reducing competition and helping them cope with the cold.
Read the full story here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
New study alert! Sexually selected vocalizations of Greater Mouse-Eared Bats
We recorded male Myotis myotis in mating roosts and found complex vocalizations with an individual signature and pronounced seasonal variation. Check it out!
🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Had fun with this one!
In which I discuss: dolphins, elephants, marmosets, teknonymy, necronymy, reciprocal names in New Guinea, nominative determinism, the Bob-Kirk effect, the face-name-matching effect, name signs, toponyms, dog names, name uniqueness, alexinomia, toponyms, name taboos, etc.
Our new study shows that cats’ purrs are more individually distinct than their meows and suggests that domestication has made the meows of cats more variable than those of cheetah, cougar & Co.
Check it out!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Come and work with us in our new home @bristolbiosci.bsky.social ! This fully funded PhD opportunity is open to anyone interested in spiders/eyes/light pollution/evolution/development! 🕷️👀
⏰Deadline 15th December, online info event TODAY @2pm! Link in the PhD advert👉 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Origins of language, one of humanity’s most distinctive traits, may be best explained as a unique convergence of multiple capacities each with its own evolutionary history, involving intertwined roles of biology & culture. This framing can expand research horizons. A 🧵 on our @science.org paper.🧪1/n
Meerkat pups in the Kalahari, South Africa
Rhesus macaques in Cayo Santiago
Dwarf mongoose staring at a camera, South Africa.
📢Two fully-funded #PhD opportunities to work with us:
Topic: Social monitoring & manipulation
UK-domiciled black-heritage scheme: tinyurl.com/aja54nr6
NERC DLTP: tinyurl.com/4jfy47pp
Cosupervisors: #PatrickKennedy @ljnbrent.bsky.social
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social
#bioacoustics #mammals #fieldwork
More cool rats vs. bat content from both my lab and the Yovel Lab in this National Geographic article. I'm glad to report that cosmic justice has been achieved... and the bats won :-)
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...
Remember…
Bats aren’t spooky, they’re adorable 💕Here, an Ectophylla alba pup chilling under a leaf tent gets a surprise visit… from a katydid.
Happy Halloween 🦇🦇🦇
(Not so) Happy Halloween! 🦇🐀🎃
Researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin documented brown rats catching #bats in mid-air at Segeberger Kalkberg, Northern Germany. A rare look at invasive species impacting urban wildlife. 🌍 @berlinbatlab.bsky.social
🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.ge...
Brown rats are preying on bats at urban hibernation sites – even snatching them mid-air. Conservation efforts must include non-native rodent control at key bat roosts.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Our latest research highlights the importance of dry grasslands for bats 🦇🦇🦇
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
This morning @dzg2025berlin.bsky.social, Mirjam Knörnschild gave a fantastic talk about social communication in Saccopteryx bilineata 🦇 including dialects, acoustically-based individual recognition.
@berlinbatlab.bsky.social
#dzg2025
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Dan Riskin from The Bat Signal made a really cool video about our recent publication.
youtube.com/@followtheba...
Our recent study on cooperation in spectral bats is featured on CNN.
This is the first publication of my PhD student Marisa Tietge - way to go!
💕🦇💕🦇💕🦇💕🦇💕🦇💕🦇
New publication from my lab: Vampyrum spectrum, the Neotropics' largest carnivorous bat, is very cooperative. These gentle apex predators regularly provide prey for family member – documented in the wild for the first time.
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
New paper out!
We found that in pipistrelle bats, social vocalizations carry a stronger phylogenetic signal than echolocation calls, suggesting the former evolve more slowly, while the latter remains flexible and shaped by the environment.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
In the field in Abruzzo National Park, watching Daubenton’s bats hunt over water at night. Excited to co-supervise Chiara Belli’s PhD together with Danilo Russo from the Animal Ecology and Evolution Lab in Italy. Chiara studies altitudinal segregation in bats and how climate change affects it 🦇🦇🦇
It’s exactly the same here in Germany… and in the future, heat may be as dangerous to bat pups as cold. Or more. I’ll keep you posted!
Awesome 🦇♥️🦇
Bats are underrated.
This is awesome 💕🦇💕
Danilo Russo and I have received a grant from MfN Berlin to study how climate change affects bat pup survival.
As Southern Europe swelters under record-breaking temperatures, we are investigating how extreme heat turns safe roosts into death traps – and how to prevent that.
2025. Acoustic romance in old church attics: Greater mouse-eared bats display lek mating system phys.org/news/2025-06...
