Giant Bats Eat Birds Mid-Air, and the Process Is Pretty Gruesome

Biologists knew that some bats ate birds because they found feathers and bones in bat poop. But no one had actually seen how bats did it. They just assumed that it would’ve been a sight to behold since you’d be watching bats take down bigger, faster, meaner prey.

Ars Technica reports that Elena Tena, a biologist at Spain’s Doñana Biological Station, strapped miniature sensors to Nyctalus lasiopterus, the greater noctule bat, and discovered that to eat a delicious bird meal, bats were engaging in some death-defying aerial dogfights.

Greater noctule bats are the biggest in Europe. They have a wingspan of around 45 centimeters and the body weight of a fun-sized Snickers bar. Tena’s team figured they couldn’t use cameras because they were too heavy, so they built ultralight sound and motion