Israeli studies have found that bats use "cognitive maps" to navigate

News Agency, Jerusalem, July 10 (Reporter Chen Wenxian Shangxuan) Bats have super navigation ability, how can they fly dozens of kilometers in a few hours for food, and then accurately return to the starting point? Israeli researchers have found that bats have spatial memory similar to those of humans, using markers to create "cognitive
" and navigate the surrounding space.
bats' ability to use sound waves to distinguish near objects is well known, and how they navigate on a larger geographic scale as they head far for food has attracted research from two Israeli teams. One team is from Tel Aviv University and the other is made up of researchers from Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University, and the papers from both teams are published in the 9th issue of the American journal Science.
in a study at Tel Aviv University, researchers tracked 22 fruit bats and developed a small global positioning system device specifically for this purpose to track their feeding in downtown Tel Aviv at different stages, from childhood to adulthood.
analysis showed that the fruit bats were navigated in a similar way to Tel Aviv residents, using landmarks such as the Azleri Building in the city to create a visual "cognitive
" of the surrounding space. One strong evidence is that they have a human-like ability to "copy the road", when these fruit bats develop to a certain stage, the brain can use the "cognitive
" to find the never-before-seen, closer route to the destination.
in collaboration with Tel Aviv University at the Hebrew University, the team tracked wild Egyptian fruit bats foraging in Israel's Hula Valley. Researchers have also developed an advanced positioning tracking system that collected data on the flight of 172 wild Egyptian fruit bats foraging at night over a four-year period.
combined with information such as fruit tree maps in the relevant regions, the bats used advanced spatial memory to establish "cognitive
" based on signs such as fruit trees and navigate it. They rarely look for food at random, but repeatedly "fly straight" through long, goal-oriented foraging, and frequently "copy the road." The researchers say the results provide the most comprehensive evidence yet of "cognitive
" in wildlife brains.