Flight behaviour and short-distance homing by nomadic grey-headed flying-foxes: a pilot study

• DOI: 10.1186/s40462-025-00532-x
• Publication Date: 2025-03-26T02:51:44Z
• Authors: Jessica Meade; John M. Martin; Adam McKeown; Christopher Turbill; Melissa J. Walker; Wayne S. J. Boardman; Justin A. Welbergen
• Keywords: Animal ecology; Homing (biology)

The ability to navigate is crucial the survival of many flying animals. Though relatively much less known about navigational abilities bats versus birds, recent progress has been made in understanding cave roosting bats, but little those arboreal flying-foxes, despite their extreme mobility. We use extremely high spatiotemporal resolution GPS tracking examine flight behaviour 11 grey-headed flying-foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) displaced 16.8 km from roost. examined metrics resulting high-resolution traces understand whether animals were aware location with respect roost capture. 7 tracked capture—as part a separate, concurrent study—to aid this comparison. Ten individuals detected at capture within four days release, all roosted for least one night away Six returned 'home' next day, and ≥ further night. Prior return 'home', on average flew 2.7 times stopped 1.7 more than reference or that had already 'home'. This indicates expended effort each non-displaced individuals. suggests these attempting rather choosing not due lack motivation home. Flight segments higher, straight, likely be oriented. ended point an individual previously visited faster, straighter end visited. Our findings suggest approximately half where they after whereas other took orient themselves. While our results are consistent previous work suggesting non-echolocating may large-scale map based vision, sensory manipulations would needed confirm this.