Animals The hearts of bats beat 900 times per minute

Researchers have measured the heartbeat of bats for the first time. Through their measurements on flying bats, some of which were taken from an airplane, they found that the animals' heartbeat reaches around 900 beats per minute during flight.

The signal of the heartbeat sounded to the scientists "like a single high-pitched tone", the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior announced on Wednesday in Constance.

The results of the study should provide insights into the energetic challenges faced by bats and their survival strategies. The experts hope that the resulting understanding will enable them to better predict how increasingly extreme temperature fluctuations or changes in food availability will affect the lives of the animals.

From six to 900 beats in no time at all

With the help of the recordings, the scientists discovered how bats allocate their energy in different seasons. For example, the male common noctule consumes up to 42 percent more energy in summer than in spring.

This is mainly due to the fact that bats go into a kind of short hibernation during the day in spring, known as torpor. This is an energy-saving state in which the heartbeat can be reduced to up to six beats per minute. When they wake up, the bats can then increase their heartbeat to up to 900 beats within minutes.

Eating over 2500 mosquitoes per night

In summer, however, the male bats did not use Torpor. The first author of the study, Lara Keicher, explained: "In the warmer months, when food is plentiful, the males prefer to stay awake during the day and invest energy in sperm production in order to be ready for mating in the fall." To replenish their spent energy, males hunt twice as long in summer as in spring, eating up to 33 cockchafers or more than 2500 mosquitoes in one night.

The lead author of the study, Dina Dechmann from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, explained that basic research into the behavior of the animals and their adaptations to the environment could help to develop protective measures for bats.

For their research work, the scientists attached heart rate transmitters weighing less than one gram to the animals, which they then accompanied in an airplane while the bats flew in search of food, sometimes for more than an hour.