Wild vampire bats that are sick spend less time near their winged buddies, which means the disease is less likely to spread.
In March, when the corona virus spread at a rapid pace, the Netherlands was introduced to the terms one-and-a-half-meter society and social distancing. By keeping enough distance from our fellow man, we could keep the spread of the virus under control. That took some getting used to, but the terms have now become established.
Vampire bats had known about this for a long time. As soon as they become infected with a virus and feel ill, they distance themselves more from their peers, American researchers discovered. The behavior had already been observed in the lab, but now also in the wild for the first time.
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The researchers captured 31 female wild bats from a hollow tree in Lamanai, Belize that served as their roost. Sixteen vampire bats were given an attenuated virus to provoke an immune response, the animals themselves were not affected. The remaining fifteen bats received a saline solution.
All bats were tagged with a sensor and then released. This allowed the team to study the behavior of the flying mammals. What turned out? The vampire bats that did not feel fit kept themselves much more aloof. They did not allow themselves to be cared for by their buddies, moved less, were sleepier and had little social contact with the bats that had only been given a saline solution.
According to researcher Simon Ripperger, this ‘passive social distancing’, as he puts it, is probably more widespread in the animal kingdom than we think. On the other hand, it is not a surprising outcome either; if we humans feel flu, we are also less cheerful and we prefer not to surround ourselves with too many people.
The point of the research? Keeping enough distance from each other is useful. As if we don’t know that by now …
Sources: Behavioral Ecology, Oxford University Press via EurekAlert!, BBC News
Beeld: Sherri and Brock Fenton/Behavioral Ecology
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