Skip to main content
Advertisement

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Accepted manuscripts
    • Issue in progress
    • Latest complete issue
    • Issue archive
    • Archive by article type
    • Special issues
    • Subject collections
    • Interviews
    • Sign up for alerts
  • About us
    • About JEB
    • Editors and Board
    • Editor biographies
    • Travelling Fellowships
    • Grants and funding
    • Journal Meetings
    • Workshops
    • The Company of Biologists
    • Journal news
  • For authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Aims and scope
    • Presubmission enquiries
    • Article types
    • Manuscript preparation
    • Cover suggestions
    • Editorial process
    • Promoting your paper
    • Open Access
    • Outstanding paper prize
    • Biology Open transfer
  • Journal info
    • Journal policies
    • Rights and permissions
    • Media policies
    • Reviewer guide
    • Sign up for alerts
  • Contacts
    • Contact JEB
    • Subscriptions
    • Advertising
    • Feedback
    • For library administrators
  • COB
    • About The Company of Biologists
    • Development
    • Journal of Cell Science
    • Journal of Experimental Biology
    • Disease Models & Mechanisms
    • Biology Open

User menu

  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Experimental Biology
  • COB
    • About The Company of Biologists
    • Development
    • Journal of Cell Science
    • Journal of Experimental Biology
    • Disease Models & Mechanisms
    • Biology Open

supporting biologistsinspiring biology

Journal of Experimental Biology

  • Log in
Advanced search

RSS  Twitter  Facebook  YouTube  

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Accepted manuscripts
    • Issue in progress
    • Latest complete issue
    • Issue archive
    • Archive by article type
    • Special issues
    • Subject collections
    • Interviews
    • Sign up for alerts
  • About us
    • About JEB
    • Editors and Board
    • Editor biographies
    • Travelling Fellowships
    • Grants and funding
    • Journal Meetings
    • Workshops
    • The Company of Biologists
    • Journal news
  • For authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Aims and scope
    • Presubmission enquiries
    • Article types
    • Manuscript preparation
    • Cover suggestions
    • Editorial process
    • Promoting your paper
    • Open Access
    • Outstanding paper prize
    • Biology Open transfer
  • Journal info
    • Journal policies
    • Rights and permissions
    • Media policies
    • Reviewer guide
    • Sign up for alerts
  • Contacts
    • Contact JEB
    • Subscriptions
    • Advertising
    • Feedback
    • For library administrators
INSIDE JEB
Recovering from a tumble and roosting bat style
Kathryn Knight
Journal of Experimental Biology 2019 222: jeb215731 doi: 10.1242/jeb.215731 Published 16 October 2019
Kathryn Knight
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: kathryn.knight@biologists.com
  • Article
  • Figures & tables
  • Info & metrics
  • PDF
Loading
Figure1
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

A Seba's short-tailed bat (Carollia perspicillata) tumbling after its wing has been hit with a 2.5× bodyweight puff of air. Photo credit: David Boerma.

Evolution has had some fun with the limbs that we call arms. From weight-bearing forelimbs, to fins and flippers, the same skeletal structures keep turning up; albeit somewhat modified. When David Boerma from Brown University, USA, gazes at the wings of a bat, he says that he literally sees himself; ‘from an anatomical perspective their wings aren't very different from my own arms and hands’, he smiles. Having traded in their manual dexterity, bats mastered an airborne lifestyle, but Boerma wondered how the mammal's elegantly elongated limbs might contribute as they navigate natural gusts and squalls. Knowing that bat wings are relatively heavy, Boerma wondered whether the mammals could capitalize on the limbs’ apparent weighty inertia to stabilise their manoeuvres when knocked off course by a gust of wind.

Working with Tim Treskatis, an intern from Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, Germany, to build a laser-triggered blast of air that would unbalance Seba's short-tailed bats (Carollia perspicillata) as they flew along a narrow corridor in the lab, Boerma filmed the bats’ recoveries in 3D to reconstruct their manoeuvres. Remarkably, when Boerma, Treskatis, Kenneth Breuer and Sharon Swartz analysed the bats’ movements they were amazed that the animals were able to recover from being thrust off course within a single wing beat.

Focusing on the bats that had been pitched upward when the 2.5× bodyweight puff of air hit their back end, the bats flung their wings wide at a point in the wing beat when they would normally pull them in; with the result that their wings were thrust forward, to counteract the jet of air and tip the body back down. However, when the jet glanced off one of the bats’ wings – forcing it down and sending the animal into a spin – the bats swiftly extended the unperturbed wing as it rolled upward in a bid to counteract the rotation. Then they swept the perturbed wing all the way under the body as the bat righted itself ready to resume normal wing beats. ‘By just shifting the weight of their wings around, bats can generate forces that rapidly reorient their bodies when recovering from aerial stumbles, similar to the way a gymnast or diver moves their arms and legs to spin in mid-air’, says Boerma.

By this point, Boerma's appetite for research had been whetted; ‘the experience left me yearning to work with bats in the field, where I might see first-hand the kinds of environmental challenges they face and learn how they respond’, he recalls. Explaining that Spix's disk-winged bats (Thyroptera tricolor), which roost head-up inside furled Heliconia leaves in the rainforest, have evolved unconventional suction cups at the base of the thumb and at the ankle for attachment to smooth leaves, Boerma was curious how the minute mammals manage their inbound trajectory when coming in to land.

Travelling to the Hacienda Baru Biological Research Station, Costa Rica, and teaming up with José Pablo Barrantes from the Universidad de Costa Rica, the duo spent two weeks tracking down the tiny mammals in their rainforest home. Returning with them briefly to the research station, the pair quickly trained the bats to land on a force plate disguised as a leaf while filming the manoeuvre. And Boerma recalls how the bats were equally happy to land on the researchers as they were on the force plate: ‘At one point José Pablo left the enclosure and I kept training the bat on my own. It flew around and then landed on my back where I couldn't reach it’, he laughs.

Figure2
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

A Spix's disk-winged bat (Thyroptera tricolor) nestling inside a furled Heliconia leaf. Photo credit; Micheal Schöner.

Analysing movies of the bats landing on the force plate and within furled leaves, with the help of high-school student Charles Chung, Boerma realised that the bats fine-tune their approach by subtly adjusting their wing beats until just above the landing site. Then they pull in their wings, going into freefall as they reach forward with their thumb suction pads to latch onto the surface. Evaluating the force exerted on the force plate as the bat made contact, the duo also realised that the suction pad snaps into place as soon as it contacts the leaf.

‘These kinds of studies help us to begin to apply what we learn about bat flight in the lab to understand the more complex flight they perform in their natural habitats’, says Boerma. He is now eager to understand how reeling bats coordinate their deft manoeuvres; in addition to looking for connections between the landing styles of other species to learn how the mammals have adapted to roost sites ranging from tightly furled leaves to caves and trees.

  • © 2019. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd

References

    1. Boerma, D. B.,
    2. Breuer, K. S.,
    3. Treskatis, T. L. and
    4. Swartz, S. M.
    (2019). Wings as inertial appendages: how bats recover from aerial stumbles. J. Exp. Biol. 222, jeb204255. doi:10.1242/jeb.204255
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
    1. Boerma, D. B.,
    2. Barrantes, J. P.,
    3. Chung, C.,
    4. Chaverri, G. and
    5. Swartz, S. M.
    (2019). Specialized landing maneuvers in Spix's disk-winged bats (Thyroptera tricolor) reveal linkage between roosting ecology and landing biomechanics. J. Exp. Biol. 222, jeb204024. doi:10.1242/jeb.204024
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
Previous ArticleNext Article
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

This Issue

 Download PDF

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Journal of Experimental Biology.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Recovering from a tumble and roosting bat style
(Your Name) has sent you a message from Journal of Experimental Biology
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the Journal of Experimental Biology web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
INSIDE JEB
Recovering from a tumble and roosting bat style
Kathryn Knight
Journal of Experimental Biology 2019 222: jeb215731 doi: 10.1242/jeb.215731 Published 16 October 2019
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
INSIDE JEB
Recovering from a tumble and roosting bat style
Kathryn Knight
Journal of Experimental Biology 2019 222: jeb215731 doi: 10.1242/jeb.215731 Published 16 October 2019

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Alerts

Please log in to add an alert for this article.

Sign in to email alerts with your email address

Article navigation

  • Top
  • Article
    • References
  • Figures & tables
  • Info & metrics
  • PDF

Related articles

Cited by...

More in this TOC section

  • Novice gyrfalcons cut straight to the kill on maiden flight
  • Wing damage no obstacle for hummingbird hawkmoths
  • Making a difference: the role of comparative biology in tackling climate change
Show more INSIDE JEB

Similar articles

Other journals from The Company of Biologists

Development

Journal of Cell Science

Disease Models & Mechanisms

Biology Open

Advertisement

Predicting the Future: Species Survival in a Changing World

Read our new special issue exploring the significant role of experimental biology in assessing and predicting the susceptibility or resilience of species to future, human-induced environmental change.


Adam Hardy wins the 2020 Journal of Experimental Biology Outstanding Paper Prize

Congratulations to winner Adam Hardy for his work showing that goby fins are as touch sensitive as primate fingertips. Read Adam’s paper and find out more about the 12 papers nominated for the award.


Stark trade-offs and elegant solutions in arthropod visual systems

Many elegant eye specializations that evolved in response to visual challenges continue to be discovered. A new Review by Meece et al. summarises exciting solutions evolved by insects and other arthropods in response to specific visual challenges.


Head bobbing gives pigeons a sense of perspective

Pigeons might look goofy with their head-bobbing walk, but it turns out that the ungainly head manoeuvre allows the birds to judge distance.

Articles

  • Accepted manuscripts
  • Issue in progress
  • Latest complete issue
  • Issue archive
  • Archive by article type
  • Special issues
  • Subject collections
  • Interviews
  • Sign up for alerts

About us

  • About JEB
  • Editors and Board
  • Editor biographies
  • Travelling Fellowships
  • Grants and funding
  • Journal Meetings
  • Workshops
  • The Company of Biologists
  • Journal news

For Authors

  • Submit a manuscript
  • Aims and scope
  • Presubmission enquiries
  • Article types
  • Manuscript preparation
  • Cover suggestions
  • Editorial process
  • Promoting your paper
  • Open Access
  • Outstanding paper prize
  • Biology Open transfer

Journal Info

  • Journal policies
  • Rights and permissions
  • Media policies
  • Reviewer guide
  • Sign up for alerts

Contact

  • Contact JEB
  • Subscriptions
  • Advertising
  • Feedback

 Twitter   YouTube   LinkedIn

© 2021   The Company of Biologists Ltd   Registered Charity 277992