Classification of human breathing sounds by the common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus.
BACKGROUND
The common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus is one of three bat species that feed exclusively on the blood of mammals often more than 1000 times its size. Vampire bats even feed on human blood. Moreover, they tend to feed on the same individual over consecutive nights.


RESULTS
Using psychoacoustical methods, we show that vampire bats can recognize individual humans by their breathing sounds. Accompanying psychoacoustical experiments using the same stimuli and procedure but with human listeners show that even these trained and instructed listeners were unable to achieve the vampire bats' performance under the most difficult conditions, where the breathing sounds had been recorded under physical strain.


CONCLUSIONS
It is suggested that vampire bats can make use of an individual acoustic signature imposed on breathing sounds in a way similar to that in which we identify humans by their vocalizations.
Gröger
Udo
U
Department Biologie II der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Grosshadernerstr, 2, D-82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany. groeger@zi.biologie.uni-muenchen.de
Wiegrebe
Lutz
L
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D012135:Respiratory Sounds / Q000145:classification*