Author: Gerry Carter

I study the behavioral, sensory, and social ecology of vampire bats. http://socialbat.org.

Vampire bats are exceptional social groomers

Undergraduate Lauren Leffer and I just published a paper in PLOS One entitled Social Grooming in Bats: Are Vampire Bats Exceptional? The answer, I think, is yes. Here's the story behind the paper. When you think of social grooming, you think of primates. Social grooming in primates has been viewed as a social glue that helps maintain … Continue reading Vampire bats are exceptional social groomers

How bats respond to distress calls: mobbing? Or predator inspection?

New paper came out on responses of a tropical free-tailed bat to distress calls. The title is Distress Calls of a Fast-Flying Bat (Molossus molossus) Provoke Inspection Flights but Not Cooperative Mobbing. Here's the story behind the paper. A year ago, I took a great field course on animal communication sponsored by a collaboration between German … Continue reading How bats respond to distress calls: mobbing? Or predator inspection?

Fixes to problems in science: 3 happening now, 3 unlikely to happen soon

I recently wrote about how both the incentive structures for academics and publishers can create problems for science. I posted it to twitter. I did not truly understand twitter until that day.  Visits to the post grew exponentially up to >8,000 visitors (and yes I fit the curve: R-squared= 0.97). Yikes. That's not a big deal for … Continue reading Fixes to problems in science: 3 happening now, 3 unlikely to happen soon

Foraging vampire bats can expect big meals or none at all

About 7% of 340 adult vampire bats and 33% of 258 younger bats (<2 years of age) failed to feed on a given night. But when they do feed, wild vampire bats fill up like water balloons. Jon Flanders took this picture of a male vampire bat. He had originally caught this bat around the … Continue reading Foraging vampire bats can expect big meals or none at all

Can friendships reduce the burden on family?

In an upcoming paper, I show that when a female bat feeds another bat, this allows her to add another possible donor to her own 'social safety net'. There's an obvious benefit to her: bats with larger sharing networks are more successful at getting fed. But there’s potentially a more subtle benefit. If a hungry bat … Continue reading Can friendships reduce the burden on family?

Goals of science vs Goals of scientists (& a love letter to PLOS One)

This monster post has been sitting on my computer hard-drive for a few months (seriously). For awhile, I was too scared to publish it. What I've written below is based on a (very) informal talk I gave at a graduate student seminar series at University of Maryland. To get the gist, the slides for that talk … Continue reading Goals of science vs Goals of scientists (& a love letter to PLOS One)