Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.

Acquisition of food in many animal species depends on the pursuit and capture of moving prey. Among modern humans, the pursuit and interception of moving targets plays a central role in a variety of sports, such as tennis, football, Frisbee, and baseball. Studies of target pursuit in animals, rangin...

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Autores principales:	Kaushik Ghose, Timothy K Horiuchi, P S Krishnaprasad, Cynthia F Moss
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2006
Materias:	Biology (General) QH301-705.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/2ba380df3ec0429f87819de81a26654b
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:2ba380df3ec0429f87819de81a26654b2021-11-25T05:33:11ZEcholocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.1544-91731545-788510.1371/journal.pbio.0040108https://doaj.org/article/2ba380df3ec0429f87819de81a26654b2006-05-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040108https://doaj.org/toc/1544-9173https://doaj.org/toc/1545-7885Acquisition of food in many animal species depends on the pursuit and capture of moving prey. Among modern humans, the pursuit and interception of moving targets plays a central role in a variety of sports, such as tennis, football, Frisbee, and baseball. Studies of target pursuit in animals, ranging from dragonflies to fish and dogs to humans, have suggested that they all use a constant bearing (CB) strategy to pursue prey or other moving targets. CB is best known as the interception strategy employed by baseball outfielders to catch ballistic fly balls. CB is a time-optimal solution to catch targets moving along a straight line, or in a predictable fashion--such as a ballistic baseball, or a piece of food sinking in water. Many animals, however, have to capture prey that may make evasive and unpredictable maneuvers. Is CB an optimum solution to pursuing erratically moving targets? Do animals faced with such erratic prey also use CB? In this paper, we address these questions by studying prey capture in an insectivorous echolocating bat. Echolocating bats rely on sonar to pursue and capture flying insects. The bat's prey may emerge from foliage for a brief time, fly in erratic three-dimensional paths before returning to cover. Bats typically take less than one second to detect, localize and capture such insects. We used high speed stereo infra-red videography to study the three dimensional flight paths of the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, as it chased erratically moving insects in a dark laboratory flight room. We quantified the bat's complex pursuit trajectories using a simple delay differential equation. Our analysis of the pursuit trajectories suggests that bats use a constant absolute target direction strategy during pursuit. We show mathematically that, unlike CB, this approach minimizes the time it takes for a pursuer to intercept an unpredictably moving target. Interestingly, the bat's behavior is similar to the interception strategy implemented in some guided missiles. We suggest that the time-optimal strategy adopted by the bat is in response to the evolutionary pressures of having to capture erratic and fast moving insects.Kaushik GhoseTimothy K HoriuchiP S KrishnaprasadCynthia F MossPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleBiology (General)QH301-705.5ENPLoS Biology, Vol 4, Iss 5, p e108 (2006)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Biology (General) QH301-705.5
spellingShingle	Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Kaushik Ghose Timothy K Horiuchi P S Krishnaprasad Cynthia F Moss Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.
description	Acquisition of food in many animal species depends on the pursuit and capture of moving prey. Among modern humans, the pursuit and interception of moving targets plays a central role in a variety of sports, such as tennis, football, Frisbee, and baseball. Studies of target pursuit in animals, ranging from dragonflies to fish and dogs to humans, have suggested that they all use a constant bearing (CB) strategy to pursue prey or other moving targets. CB is best known as the interception strategy employed by baseball outfielders to catch ballistic fly balls. CB is a time-optimal solution to catch targets moving along a straight line, or in a predictable fashion--such as a ballistic baseball, or a piece of food sinking in water. Many animals, however, have to capture prey that may make evasive and unpredictable maneuvers. Is CB an optimum solution to pursuing erratically moving targets? Do animals faced with such erratic prey also use CB? In this paper, we address these questions by studying prey capture in an insectivorous echolocating bat. Echolocating bats rely on sonar to pursue and capture flying insects. The bat's prey may emerge from foliage for a brief time, fly in erratic three-dimensional paths before returning to cover. Bats typically take less than one second to detect, localize and capture such insects. We used high speed stereo infra-red videography to study the three dimensional flight paths of the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, as it chased erratically moving insects in a dark laboratory flight room. We quantified the bat's complex pursuit trajectories using a simple delay differential equation. Our analysis of the pursuit trajectories suggests that bats use a constant absolute target direction strategy during pursuit. We show mathematically that, unlike CB, this approach minimizes the time it takes for a pursuer to intercept an unpredictably moving target. Interestingly, the bat's behavior is similar to the interception strategy implemented in some guided missiles. We suggest that the time-optimal strategy adopted by the bat is in response to the evolutionary pressures of having to capture erratic and fast moving insects.
format	article
author	Kaushik Ghose Timothy K Horiuchi P S Krishnaprasad Cynthia F Moss
author_facet	Kaushik Ghose Timothy K Horiuchi P S Krishnaprasad Cynthia F Moss
author_sort	Kaushik Ghose
title	Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.
title_short	Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.
title_full	Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.
title_fullStr	Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.
title_full_unstemmed	Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.
title_sort	echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2006
url	https://doaj.org/article/2ba380df3ec0429f87819de81a26654b
work_keys_str_mv	AT kaushikghose echolocatingbatsuseanearlytimeoptimalstrategytointerceptprey AT timothykhoriuchi echolocatingbatsuseanearlytimeoptimalstrategytointerceptprey AT pskrishnaprasad echolocatingbatsuseanearlytimeoptimalstrategytointerceptprey AT cynthiafmoss echolocatingbatsuseanearlytimeoptimalstrategytointerceptprey
_version_	1718414626705637376

Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.

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