New research confirms a 25-year-old theory that bats hunt and eat small birds in flight at high altitudes.
After nearly 25 years of research, scientists have finally confirmed a theory they had long suspected: biggest bat in Europethe giant tree bat (Nyctalus lasiopterus), hunts, captures and devours small birds in mid-air, at more than a kilometer of altitude.
The , published in the magazine Science, reveals extraordinary nocturnal hunts that take place high in the night sky. Using cutting-edge bio-recording technology, an international team has recorded how these giant bats chase migratory songbirds in total darkness, capturing them in mid-flight and consuming them while still in the air.
To unlock the hunting secrets of bats, scientists equipped them with tiny “backpacks” with sensors that tracked altitude, acceleration, movement and echolocation calls. The data revealed that bats climb the migratory routes of nocturnal birds, such as American robins, detecting their prey with long-range, low-frequency echolocation.
Once the target has been identified, the bat dives abruptly, sometimes for almost three minutes, tripling your acceleration and emitting rapid bursts of ultrasonic sounds to guide its attack. In one documented event, microphones picked up 21 distress calls from a captured American robin, followed by 23 minutes of crunching sounds as the bat fed in mid-flight.
Later DNA and X-ray analyzes confirmed the procedure: the bat kills the bird with one bite, remove the wings to reduce drag and stores its prey in a membranous pouch between its hind legs to feed while it is in the air, explains .
The discovery completes a decades-long search led by Spanish bat expert Carlos Ibanezwho found bird feathers in noctule bat droppings in the late 1990s. Despite mounting evidence, the idea that bats could capture birds in mid-flight was met with skepticism due to the birds’ agility and similar body weight.
Although the research confirms an extraordinary form of aerial predation, scientists emphasize that the giant tree bat is in danger of extinction and does not pose a threat to bird populations. Habitat loss remains its greatest danger.
