/data/photo/2020/02/02/5e36d72a56cb2.jpg "When sick, bats tend to do social distancing")
KOMPAS.com – Bat has long had a bad reputation. The creatures that live in these colonies are known as reservoirs for various viruses, including one of them corona virus.
But despite all that, bat actually has an important role for the environment. They are important pollinators and pest controllers for the ecosystem.
And now researchers have succeeded in uncovering other behaviors of nocturnal creatures that not many people know about.
Also read: Scientist: Bats Shouldn’t Be Blamed for Covid-19, Here’s Why
As quoted from Science Alert, Wednesday (28/10/2020), this new study says that when bats feel sick, they naturally exhibit a form of behavior that is less social or tends to distance themselves.
Researchers drew these conclusions after conducting a study on a group of wild vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) from a colony in Lamanai, Belize, Central America.
In his study, a peliti injected bats with a substance that triggers the immune system. Sixteen randomly selected female bats were injected with a substance to activate the immune system that made them feel nauseous for several hours, but did not cause any obvious illness.
Meanwhile, 15 other bats were given an injection of salt water as a placebo.
Researchers also installed small sensors attached to their backs to track their social gatherings at regular intervals over several days.
“We focused on three behavioral measures of sick bats: how many other bats they encountered, how much total time they spent with other bats, and how well they connected with the herd,” said Gerald Carter, a behavioral ecologist at The Ohio State University.
Also read: Bats Carry Many Coronaviruses, Why Don’t They Get Sick?
And the result, research that has been published in Behavioral Ecology This found, if bats that were sick clearly changed their behavior to be more distant from other bats that are healthy.
“The effect was obvious. Even without complicated statistical analysis,” said Simon Ripperger, a bat researcher from The Ohio State University.
In six hours, bat sick on average, made four times less contact than healthy bats.
Sick bat also spend less time interacting with each other.
Also read: Corona Virus exists in bats and has not been detected for decades
“In the wild, we observed vampire bats, which are very social animals, keep their distance when they are sick or when other bats are sick in their packs. With that behavior they can eventually reduce the spread of disease,” added Ripperger.
Even so, it should be noted that researchers did not infect vampire bats with real viruses or bacteria.
Nor does the study measure the true spread of disease in the colony, only looking at a small group in one location.
So there is still a possibility, some real diseases just do not affect behavior and make bat interactions not diminish.
Also read: Animal Miscellaneous: Why Do Bats Sleep Upside Down?
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