BABBLING bouts of barks by baby bats. It's not a tongue-twister; it's the first example of
infant vocalisation in non-primate mammals.
In human infants, babbling has an important role in language acquisition, developing the
vocal tract and associated musculature. Similar behaviour is seen in other primates and some
songbirds. Now a team led by Otto von Helversen at the Friedrich-Alexander University of
Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, has recorded infant babbling in sac-winged bat pups
(Saccopteryx bilineata), a species with an unusually large vocal repertoire. The pups, aged
4 to 8 weeks, uttered renditions of all known adult vocalisations, including barks, chatters
and screeches (Naturwissenschaften, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-006-0127-9).
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