TY  - INPR
A1  - Hechavarria-Cueria, Julio C.
A1  - Beetz, Marcel Jerome
A1  - García Rosales, Francisco
A1  - Kössl, Manfred
T1  - Superfast periodicities in distress vocalizations emitted by bats
T2  - bioRxiv
N2  - Communication sounds are ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, where they play a role in advertising physiological states and/or socio-contextual scenarios. Distress sounds, for example, are typically uttered in distressful scenarios such as agonistic interactions. Here, we report on the occurrence of superfast temporal periodicities in distress calls emitted by bats (species Carollia perspicillata). Distress vocalizations uttered by this bat species are temporally modulated at frequencies close to 1.7 kHz, that is, ∼17 times faster than modulation rates observed in human screams. Fast temporal periodicities are represented in the bats’ brain by means of frequency following responses, and temporally periodic sounds are more effective in boosting the heart rate of awake bats than their demodulated versions. Altogether, our data suggest that bats, an animal group classically regarded as ultrasonic, can exploit the low frequency portion of the soundscape during distress calling to create spectro-temporally complex, arousing sounds.
Y1  - 2019
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/72598
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-725983
IS  - 734640
ER  -