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Date Posted: Monday, March 08, 05:55:25pm
Author: Leah
Subject: Re: Summary of Michelle's Presentation
In reply to: Joan 's message, "NFSA Conference Research Reports" on Thursday, March 04, 02:00:51pm

Summary of "Ultrasound in Southern Flying Squirrels, What's all the Chatter About?"

1. Flying squirrels frequently use ultrasound (20 to approx 27 kHz)
2. Juveniles seem to take advantage of ultrasonic calls more frequently than adults (Suggests it is being used as communication between siblings and mother squirrel)
3. Adult males use ultrasound (suggests that it is NOT just
communication between mother and offspring). Could be for communication between males and females during breeding season? More work needed at this point, but an interesting & new finding.
4. No evidence of ultrasound being used as form of echolocation (to navigate during glides or searching for food). Much more work will be done with this. Not convinced this early in the process that they aren't using echolocation...stay tuned.
5. Spectrograms of calls are in waves ranging from sonic to ultrasonic (15 to 27 kHz), and generally last for 3 to 6 seconds.


More on number 4 - Echolocation: Michelle explained to us that she did not have any obstacles set up within the test room at this early stage. So, the flyers would not necessarily need to use echolocation for navigational purposes in that room. She will be doing further studies on this aspect wherein various obstacles will be introduced. Flyers have panoramic vision as opposed to binocular vision. With panoramic vision, there is very little depth perception, and that, added to the fact that flyers must navigate in the darkness through trees and are known to employ ultrasonic communication, indicates to her the strong possibility of the use of echolocation.

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