Behavior and Life History
The yellow-winged bat is a monogamous species. Males and females form pairs during the breeding season and establish their own foraging territories. They are no more than 1 m apart when roosting together. One member is vigilant during the day and can turn head 225° and move its ears. Between the foraging periods in the morning and evening, the male visits the peripheral roost and protecting it from potential intruders. In the morning, the pairs interact with each other before splitting up for the day. The male and female meet again at the primary roost tree before evening to interact. The maximum amount of male-female social interaction occurs between May and early June. This is when the when raining and insects are more numerous and the young hone their hunting skills. The exact time in which the yellow-winged bat gives birth, can vary by region. Parturition occurs at the close of the dry season in October in Zambia, while at Lake Baringo in Kenya, it occurs the start of the so-called long rains in April. Females are pregnant for around 3 months with only one young being born. During the first few weeks, young hang on to their mothers. Soon, the young stay at the roost for around a week and develop self-sustained flight. Young are weaned when they are around 55 days old.
Calls produced by this species include search-phase echolocation calls and some social calls that can be heard by humans. Echolocation helps give the bat information on close objects. Social calls are associated with aggression, copulation or mother-offspring interactions.
Read more about this topic: Yellow-winged Bat
Famous quotes containing the words behavior, life and/or history:
“This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am prone to count myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and nobly to that person who I pay with money, whereas if I had not that commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“A tree is beautiful, but whats more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future!”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (18601904)
“We may pretend that were basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)