Overview
- The peer-reviewed study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2025.2481), offers experimental evidence from free-ranging bats.
- Researchers built an eight-meter tunnel lined with roughly 8,000 artificial reflectors to create controlled, hedge-like echo scenes.
- Wild pipistrelle bats recorded over three nights (181 trajectories, 104 full passes analyzed) altered speed in response to echo-flow manipulations.
- When reflectors moved against the bats’ direction, increasing perceived flow, flight speed decreased by up to about 28%; movement with the bats induced acceleration.
- The findings indicate sensitivity to Doppler shifts for speed control in a species not classed as a Doppler specialist, with potential bio-inspired applications for drones still at an exploratory stage.