Practice makes perfect. According to ecologists, this also applies to the two-tailed pocket bat that ‘speaks baby language’ as an infant to train its vocal cords.
Prrrrt, goe goe, dada dadada – they are only a few months out of the womb when our offspring are already well on the way to (vocal) interaction. But it’s not just our babies who would make these (cute) simmering noises. In trade magazine Science ecologists at the natural history museum in Berlin write that the newborn babies of some bats also develop their voices while babbling.
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Practice, practice, practice
With their gibberish of ‘near words’, human babies practice the intricacies of their vocal system, such as the complex movements of the larynx (voice box), as well as those of the tongue, lips and jaws. The goal is to be able to start using real words a good number of months later.
Previous research showed that a handful of songbirds undergo a similar development. However, very little is known about this ‘babbling’ behavior in other mammals. Until now. According to the German ecologists and bat experts, the young scions of the two-tailed pocket bat (Saccopteryx bilineata) it too.
Vocal Kites
Named for the two stripes on the back and the ‘pockets’ on the wings, the two-banded pocket bat lives in trees in Central and South America. These nocturnal animals are known for their golden throats. Adult males sing to mark their territory before going out at night, as well as to impress females.
One of the researchers, bat expert Mirjam Knörnschild, noticed that the very young pups of this bat species make sounds that are reminiscent of our babies’ babbling. So she and her fellow ecologists took a closer look at 20 puppies in forests in Panama and Costa Rica between 2015 and 2016.
Chatter
After recording and analyzing hundreds of sound clips, consisting of thousands of ‘separate’ sounds, the researchers concluded that the bat pups start babbling when they are two or three weeks old. They stop when they are weaned, at seven to ten weeks of age.
The researchers found many similarities between the babbling of human and bat babies. Sounds were often repeated in a rhythmic manner. There is no communication with it; the puppies do not seem to react to conspecifics with the sounds. According to the researchers, both imply that, just like with babies, it’s about exercising their vocal apparatus.
And practice makes perfect; According to the ecologists, the gibberish would become more and more complex by the week.
Sources: Science, phys.org, New Scientist, EurekAlert!
Image: Michael Stifter
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