Fruit Bats Argue About Food, Sleep, and Personal Space

Scientists Used AI to Decode Bat Chatter — Turns Out They Spend Most of Their Time Arguing

Posted 7 days ago·Updated 1 day ago

If you've ever assumed bat colonies are just a wall of identical screeching, you'd be wrong. Very wrong.

Decoding 15,000 Arguments

In 2016, a team led by Prof. Yossi Yovel at Tel Aviv University recorded 15,000 vocalizations from 22 Egyptian fruit bats over 75 days. They then fed the audio through a machine learning algorithm originally designed for human voice recognition.

What they found was that bat calls weren't just generic noise. Each call contained specific information about who was calling, who they were calling to, and what they were arguing about.

Four Flavours of Bat Drama

The algorithm identified four main topics of conversation — and "conversation" is generous, because over 60% of all calls were arguments:

Food squabbles — "That's MY fruit"
Sleeping position disputes — "Move over, you're in my spot"
Personal space violations — "You're too close"
Unwanted mating advances — "Absolutely not"

As lead researcher Yovel put it: "We have shown that a big bulk of bat vocalizations that were previously thought to all mean the same thing — 'get out of here!' — actually contain a lot of information."

Bats Know Who They're Talking To

Perhaps the most remarkable finding: bats modify their calls depending on who they're addressing. The algorithm could identify the specific recipient about 50% of the time and their sex 64% of the time. This kind of addressee-specific calling is extremely rare in the animal kingdom — previously documented only in dolphins and a handful of other species.

It's not quite a "name" in the human sense, but it's functionally the same thing: a unique vocal signature directed at a specific individual.

Basically, Bats Are Us

Arguing about food. Fighting over sleeping arrangements. Complaining about personal space. Rejecting advances. If you replaced "bat colony" with "shared flat," you wouldn't notice the difference.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do fruit bats argue about?

Researchers identified four main topics: food (who gets what), sleeping positions (who sleeps where), personal space (getting too close), and unwanted mating advances. Over 60% of their calls were classified as aggressive interactions.

How did scientists decode bat calls?

A team at Tel Aviv University recorded 15,000 vocalizations from 22 Egyptian fruit bats over 75 days, then used a machine learning algorithm (GMM-UBM, adapted from human voice recognition) to classify the calls by context, caller identity, and who they were addressing.

Do bats really have names for each other?

Not exactly names, but something functionally similar. Bats modify their call structure depending on which specific individual they are addressing — the algorithm could identify the addressee about 50% of the time. This 'addressee-specific vocalization' is a trait shared by very few species, including dolphins.

What species of bat was studied?

Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus), which are highly social bats that roost in large colonies. They are among the most vocal bat species, making them ideal for studying animal communication.

Verified Fact

Verified via peer-reviewed study in Scientific Reports (2016) by Prof. Yossi Yovel, Tel Aviv University. Species: Rousettus aegyptiacus (Egyptian fruit bat). 15,000 vocalizations from 22 bats over 75 days analysed using GMM-UBM machine learning algorithm. Four argument contexts confirmed: food, sleeping positions, proximity/personal space, mating protests. Over 60% of calls classified as aggressive. Algorithm identified specific addressee 50% of the time, addressee sex 64%. The "names" claim is a simplification of addressee-specific call modification — functionally equivalent. Confirmed by Smithsonian, Scientific American, Nature, Phys.org, Berkeley News.

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