The ultimate buzzkill

July 24, 2012 9:49 AM

Bats eavesdrop on the sound of copulating flies (includes grainy sextape). Another summary with additional comments.
posted by elgilito (9 comments total)

Follow-up study: Hockey masks improve echolocation targeting of prey by Myotis nattereri.
posted by zarq at 9:59 AM on July 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Bat thought: "Damn, I am hungry. Gotta find me some f***ing flies."
posted by kinnakeet at 10:07 AM on July 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Between this and the "guy in a goat costume frolicking on a mountain" post a couple things down, I feel like we should hang some great big "NSFW for Vets" sign over the whole of the blue today.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:18 AM on July 24, 2012

You know who else eavesdropped and accumulated thousands of copulating files?
That's right: J. Edgar Hoover.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:26 AM on July 24, 2012

(and you guessed it: Frank Stallone.)
posted by Earthtopus at 10:38 AM on July 24, 2012

[ObTMWRNJ joke]No you see Stu: a gnat's chuff is literally as tight as a gnat's chuff. [/obTMWRNJ joke]
posted by MartinWisse at 11:28 AM on July 24, 2012

Ceiling bat is listening to you copulate.
posted by The Bellman at 11:56 AM on July 24, 2012

[purifying soap] *needed to clean mind after even wanting to listen to flies copulating that were eavesdropped on by bats.
posted by nickyskye at 4:41 PM on July 24, 2012

The authors of the paper speculate that the females may use the buzzing to assess some aspect of the males' fitness, so they may need to hear this sound before allowing mating to proceed. If so, the male's performance makes for potentially fatal foreplay.

You always hear about dangers of mating and certain selected-for sexual traits, but this is a pretty clean demonstration of that. Thanks for posting!
posted by rosswald at 5:20 PM on July 24, 2012