{"id":26421,"date":"2025-04-22T23:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T23:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26421"},"modified":"2025-04-22T23:24:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T23:24:38","slug":"how-bats-drink-while-flying-without-getting-splashed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26421","title":{"rendered":"How Bats Drink While Flying Without Getting Splashed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bats are not only masters of aerodynamic flight \u2014 they\u2019re skillful at multitasking while flying, too.<\/p>\n

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Some humans like to think of themselves as good multitaskers, but bats may do it better. Many bat species have the ability to fly while simultaneously drinking water \u2014 but unlike people who try similar multitasking, such as driving while texting, the bats never crash. Now, new research reveals the physics behind this feat of coordination<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe technical details of how bats do this are very complex, but what we\u2019re ultimately trying to understand is how animals multitask,\u201d said Sunghwan Jung, a biophysicist at Cornell University and an author of the study published Wednesday in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. \u201cAnimals have very busy lives, like humans, and if they can do two tasks at the same time, they have a better chance at survival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the world\u2019s approximately 1,400 bat species, \u201cskim drinking on the wing\u201d is the most prevalent strategy for taking a sip of water, said Rolf M\u00fcller, a mechanical engineer at Virginia Tech and an author of the study.<\/p>\n

This behavior likely evolved to keep bats off the ground and away from predators. Although finding water is a necessity, sources of water can be dangerous places for animals, Dr. Jung said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Some bats drink directly by lapping water with their tongues as they fly over a water source. Others, such as flying foxes, drink indirectly by wetting their fur and then licking it<\/a> \u2014 a strategy known as \u201cbelly-dipping.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The study focused on tongue-lappers, not belly-dippers.<\/span>Cornell University<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Bats are not only masters of aerodynamic flight \u2014 they\u2019re skillful at multitasking while flying, too.Some humans like to think of themselves as good multitaskers, but bats may do it better. Many bat species have the ability to fly while simultaneously drinking water \u2014 but unlike people who try similar multitasking, such as driving while texting, the bats never crash. Now, new research reveals the physics behind this feat of coordination.\u201cThe technical details of how bats do this are very complex, but what we\u2019re ultimately trying to understand is how animals multitask,\u201d said Sunghwan Jung, a biophysicist at Cornell University and an author of the study published Wednesday in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. \u201cAnimals have very busy lives, like humans, and if they can do two tasks at the same time, they have a better chance at survival.\u201dOf the world\u2019s approximately 1,400 bat species, \u201cskim drinking on the wing\u201d is the most prevalent strategy for taking a sip of water, said Rolf M\u00fcller, a mechanical engineer at Virginia Tech and an author of the study.This behavior likely evolved to keep bats off the ground and away from predators. Although finding water is a necessity, sources of water can be dangerous places for animals, Dr. Jung said.Some bats drink directly by lapping water with their tongues as they fly over a water source. Others, such as flying foxes, drink indirectly by wetting their fur and then licking it \u2014 a strategy known as \u201cbelly-dipping.\u201dThe study focused on tongue-lappers, not belly-dippers.Cornell UniversityWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26423,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26424,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26421\/revisions\/26424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}