Bats may be confused by metal surfaces

A near-perfect science video: brief, to-the-point, clearly narrated, and beautifully filmed.   Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology document that bats recognize the special echo-reflectivity properties of still water from birth, and can be fooled when presented with other smooth (metallic) surfaces.  The data are discussed by Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science:

This drive to drink from smooth-sounding surfaces is so strong that bats will ignore other cues to the materials’ identity, including the fact that they look, smell and feel different. Every single adult bat involved in the study did the same thing and some tried their luck a hundred times or more. Even individuals that had accidentally landed on the plates would try to drink from them later, despite their first-hand evidence that the surface couldn’t possibly be made of water. When Greif and Siemers placed a metal plate on a table, so that the bats could echolocate underneath it (and even fly underneath it), they still tried to drink from it.

The study raises this question:

If bats can be fooled by plates just 2 square metres in area, they might also try to drink from other large man-made smooth surfaces, like the roofs of cars. It will be interesting to see whether they do this, how often it happens and whether it causes them any harm...