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Related Concept Videos

Optimal Foraging

Optimal Foraging

How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 22, 2026

Author Spotlight: Exploring Behavioral Pathways Through Cross-Species Insights in Foraging and Communication

Author Spotlight: Exploring Behavioral Pathways Through Cross-Species Insights in Foraging and Communication

Published on: November 17, 2023

Echolocating bats use future-target information for optimal foraging.

Emyo Fujioka¹, Ikkyu Aihara², Miwa Sumiya³

¹Organization for Research Initiatives and Development, Doshisha University, Kyoto 610-0394, Japan; Faculty of Life and Medical Sciences, Doshisha University, Kyoto 610-0394, Japan; emyo.fujioka@gmail.com.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

|April 13, 2016

Summary

Bats strategically distribute attention between current and future prey during foraging. This planning behavior, involving sonar and flight adjustments, is crucial for successfully capturing multiple airborne insects.

Keywords:

aerial capture bat sonar flight dynamics mathematical modeling microphone array

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Area of Science:

Animal Behavior
Sensory Ecology
Bioacoustics

Background:

Animals direct attention to single targets for foraging.
Effective foraging strategies for multiple prey items remain unclear.
Echolocating bats provide a model for studying attention during multi-prey capture.

Purpose of the Study:

To quantify the attention allocation of echolocating bats during multi-prey capture.
To investigate the role of sonar and flight path planning in consecutive prey capture.
To understand the decision-making processes in bats' natural foraging dynamics.

Main Methods:

Field experiments using microphone arrays to record bat echolocation calls.
Mathematical modeling and numerical simulations to analyze flight paths and attention.
Observation of bats capturing multiple airborne insects.

Main Results:

Bats direct sonar attention to both immediate and upcoming prey.
Bat flight paths are adjusted to anticipate the next prey, even during pursuit of the current one.
Distributing attention across multiple targets significantly increases capture success.

Conclusions:

Bats employ a sophisticated strategy of distributed attention for efficient multi-prey foraging.
Planning future flight paths based on upcoming prey is essential for maximizing foraging benefits.
This study reveals complex decision-making in bats' natural flight and foraging behaviors.