https://www.npr.org/2021/08/19/1029343443/bats-love-to-babble-just-like-humans

Accessibility links

  * Skip to main content
  * Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

  * Open Navigation Menu
  * NPR logo
  * 
  * 
  * NPR Shop
  * 

Close Navigation Menu

  * Home
  * News Expand/collapse submenu for News
      + National
      + World
      + Politics
      + Business
      + Health
      + Science
      + Technology
      + Race & Culture
  * Arts & Life Expand/collapse submenu for Arts & Life
      + Books
      + Movies
      + Television
      + Pop Culture
      + Food
      + Art & Design
      + Performing Arts
      + Life Kit
  * Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music
      + #NowPlaying
      + Tiny Desk
      + All Songs Considered
      + Music News
      + Music Features
      + Live Sessions
  * Shows & Podcasts Expand/collapse submenu for Shows & Podcasts
    Daily
      + [morning-ed] Morning Edition
      + [we_otheren] Weekend Edition Saturday
      + [we_otheren] Weekend Edition Sunday
      + [all-things] All Things Considered
      + [fresh-air] Fresh Air
      + [up-first] Up First
    Featured
      + [no-comprom] No Compromise
      + [updatedoow] On Our Watch
      + [nprthrough] Throughline
      + [rt_homefro] Rough Translation
      + More Shows & Podcasts
  * Search
  * 
  * NPR Shop

  * NPR Music NPR Music
  * #NowPlaying
  * Tiny Desk
  * All Songs Considered
  * Music News
  * Music Features
  * Live Sessions

  * About NPR
  * Diversity
  * Organization
  * Support
  * Careers
  * Connect
  * Press
  * Ethics

Scientists Find Some Bats Babble Just Like Babies New research finds
that sac-winged bat pups -- a species of bat found in Central and
South America -- like to "babble" in ways that are remarkably similar
to human babies.

    Short Wave
    NPR
  * subscribe to Short Wave podcast
  * 
      + NPR One
      + Apple Podcasts
      + Google Podcasts
      + Pocket Casts
      + Spotify
      + Amazon Alexa
      + RSS link

Science

Bats Love To Babble -- Just Like Humans

  * Facebook
  * Twitter
  * Flipboard
  * Email

August 19, 20214:47 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Geoff Brumfiel, photographed for NPR, 17 January 2019, in Washington
DC.

Geoff Brumfiel

Facebook Twitter Instagram

Bats Love To Babble -- Just Like Humans

Listen * 2:55 2:55
Toggle more options

  * Download
  * Embed
    Embed [<iframe src="https:/] <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/
    player/embed/1029343443/1029437869" width="100%" height="290"
    frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  * Transcript

[bat-1-04fe]
Enlarge this image

After listening to hours of bat pups in the wild, scientists have
identified eight characteristics of babbling that are shared by human
babies and the greater sac-winged bat. B.G. Thomson/Science Source 
hide caption

toggle caption
B.G. Thomson/Science Source

After listening to hours of bat pups in the wild, scientists have
identified eight characteristics of babbling that are shared by human
babies and the greater sac-winged bat.

B.G. Thomson/Science Source

Spend any time around a baby and you're likely to hear some babbling.
Now, new research shows baby bats can do it too.

A paper published on Thursday in the latest issue of the journal
Science finds similarities between the babbling of human infants and
the babbling of the greater sac-winged bat (Saccopteryx bilineata) --
a small species of bat that lives in Central and South America.

The researchers believe that bats and humans both evolved babbling as
a precursor to more complex vocal behavior such as singing, or, in
the case of people, talking.

"It's crazy," that two species which are so distantly related both
babble, says Ahana Fernandez, an animal behavioral ecologist at the
Museum of Natural History in Berlin, Germany.

Fernandez, a co-author on the new paper, hopes that the similarities
in infant sounds might eventually reveal common genes used in the
process of vocal learning.

Different species, similar babbling

The greater sac-winged bat is a relatively unassuming little
creature. "They're really cute," says Fernandez. "They have friendly
faces."

Fernandez has spent countless hours watching the bats and recording
their sounds. To the human ear, their babbling can sound like a
series of repetitive, high-pitched chirps.

"Usually we have a colony where we have several bat pups and then one
of the pups starts to babble," she says. "They babble for sometimes
40 minutes."

Their babbling is unique. Although songbirds and humans babble,
researchers have not found any other bat species that babbles.

The Best Of Bats: Favorite Pieces From The NPR Archive

50 Years Of NPR

The Best Of Bats: Favorite Pieces From The NPR Archive

Years ago, it was Mirjam Knornschild, the head of the museum's
behavioral ecology and bioacoustics laboratory (and Fernandez's
boss), who first noticed the bat pups doing something that sounded
like babbling. She thought it sounded like human babies, and when
Fernandez started working with the bats, she heard it too: "It's so
conspicuous, it's so loud," she says. "And yes, I was also thinking
about human infants that babble."

Fernandez and the research team set out to systematically study the
babbling. They identified a set of eight different characteristics
that are found in human baby babble. For example, human babies babble
in a way that is non-random: "They produce a syllable type in a
rhythmic way... 'ba ba ba' and then switch to the next one 'da da
da,'" she says.

When the researchers listened to the bats, they found that their
babbling was similar. Like babies, the bat pups repeated precursor
"syllables" that eventually show up in their songs when they are
fully grown. The babbling was also rhythmic and universal among all
the bat pups, even though only the males "sing" later in their lives.

Is babbling a better way to cry?

The work of Fernandez and her colleagues does seem to rigorously show
that this bat species babbles, says Erich Jarvis, a researcher at the
Rockefeller University in New York who studies vocal learning in
songbirds.

"Their findings are consistent with the hypothesis that babbling and
vocal learning abilities go hand in hand," he said in an e-mail.

But that still leaves the question of how babbling evolved in the
first place, says D. Kimbrough Oller, a professor in the School of
Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Memphis,
who was not directly involved with the study.

Bat Calls Make Eerie Comeback As Techno-Like Beats

Animals

Bat Calls Make Eerie Comeback As Techno-Like Beats

One hypothesis is that babbling began as a way to get the attention
of parents, without the annoyance of constant crying, he says. By
babbling, babies could be signaling their fitness, and that they are
worth attending to.

"Once babbling is off the ground, it can supply a foundation for the
adult of vocal capabilities that can be used for something else,"
Oller says.

In other words, babbling may have begun as a simple alternative to
crying, but it quickly found an evolutionary use in vocal learning
species, allowing infants to develop the skills needed later in life.

Jarvis thinks babbling may exist on more of a continuum, with some
species that don't learn songs and language doing it, too. He says
this latest study of babbling in bats should provide the foundation
for future research into babbling and vocal learning in other
animals.

As for the bats, Fernandez says for now the greater sac-winged bat is
the only species known to babble, but she believes there are other
species out there: "We have more than 1,400 bat species worldwide,"
she says. "I am absolutely sure we're going to find another one."

Is That A Lark I Hear? A Nightingale? Surprise! It's A Bat

Krulwich Wonders...

Is That A Lark I Hear? A Nightingale? Surprise! It's A Bat

  * greater sac winged bats
  * babbling
  * vocal learning
  * bats

  * Facebook
  * Twitter
  * Flipboard
  * Email

Read & Listen

  * Home
  * News
  * Arts & Life
  * Music
  * Podcasts
  * Programs

Connect

  * Newsletters
  * Facebook
  * Twitter
  * Instagram
  * Press
  * Contact & Help

About NPR

  * Overview
  * Diversity
  * Ethics
  * Finances
  * Public Editor
  * Corrections

Get Involved

  * Support Public Radio
  * Sponsor NPR
  * NPR Careers
  * NPR Shop
  * NPR Events
  * NPR Extra

  * Terms of Use
  * Privacy
  * Your Privacy Choices
  * Text Only
  * 

NPR thanks our sponsors

Become an NPR sponsor