Nature 466, 163; Date published: 08 July 2010; DOI: 10.1038/466163e;
Published online: 07 July 2010
Journal club
Tecumseh Fitch
A cognitive biologist foresees breakthroughs in understanding vocal learning.
Vocal learning — the capacity to reproduce sounds heard in the
environment — is key to human speech. Humans are alone among primates
in having vocal-learning abilities, but a surprising variety of
non-primates, such as songbirds and parrots, are also excellent vocal
learners. The list of mammals with the ability is comparatively short,
comprising humans, some whales and seals, and probably elephants. Now
research on tropical bats has added another creature to the list.
Mirjam Knörnschild at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany
and her colleagues studied sac-winged bats (Saccopteryx bilineata) in
Costa Rica (M. Knörnschild et al. Biol. Lett. 6, 156–159; 2010). Male
Saccopteryx produce elaborate courtship displays that include complex
songs. Surprisingly, young bats also produce songs, and acoustic
analysis showed that as the bats grew older, their songs became more
like those of the local territorial male. For about half the pups, the
local male was not their father, ruling out simple genetic effects.
Moreover, pups' songs often became less species-typical over time,
ruling out simple maturation. This research thus provides the first
clear evidence for complex vocal learning in bats.
The finding is exciting for several reasons. First, the species is the
only mammalian vocal learner that could conveniently be kept and
eventually bred in the lab, opening the door to detailed scientific
investigation. Second, previous work suggests that the FOXP2 gene,
which is known to be involved in vocal learning in humans and birds,
has also been under strong selection in bats, although we don't yet
know why. Echolocation is probably part of the answer, but this study
suggests that social communication could be another. I believe that
research on Saccopteryx will usher in an era of increased
understanding of mammalian vocal learning.
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Enjoy!
Xiao
XIAO, Jianqiang, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Psychology Department
Rutgers University
152 Frelinghuysen Road
Piscataway, NJ 08854
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