Baby bats babble, much like human infants

Saccopteryx bilineata illustration courtesy of Gloria Gessinger When Ahana Fernandez and her colleagues trek through the rainforests of Central America, they keep their ears tuned for an unusual sound: highpitched, repetitive chirping and squeaking. The noises come from greater sacwinged bat pups (Saccopteryx bilineata). Though they sound nothing like the babbling of human babies, the animal behavior researcher and her colleagues at the Natural History Museum, Berlin, suspected the two might have something in common. Read the story: