Today I learned that bats are trendsetters in tracking technology

Bats are elusive little creatures, making them the perfect objects for scientists to experiment with new animal tracking systems. This is great news for me specifically, because I love both bats and seeing images of animals with small goofy trackers on them. How can you look at those stamps with ridiculous antenna hats and not laugh at least a little bit?

One of the latest innovations in wearable tracking is the dulog system, a wireless sensor network built by biologist Simon Ripperger and engineer Niklas Duda, which has been put to the test in several bat tracking studies in recent years. Now that the dulog has proved its courage with bats, which are tiny, nocturnal and generally difficult to observe, the duo believes it can be useful in monitoring all types of animals.

“If your project can be successful with bats, it can probably work with most species,” said Ripperger in a recent blog post on Silicon Labs. When he started in the bat tracking business, he saw that his advisor was “essentially chasing after the bats, chasing them with an antenna”. I will keep this image in my mind for a while, but Ripperger and Duda think the dulog’s tiny sensors will make animal studies easier – less chase required.

Image: dulog

The data collected with dulog tags can be downloaded remotely, that is, after the initial attachment, scientists do not have to fight animals to retrieve the data from their tags. They are also smaller and lighter than current GPS tracking systems that allow remote downloads – the bat in the photo above would fit in the palm of your hand and the sensor weighs less than a gram. What is most exciting for the Ripperger is that brands “talk to each other”, meaning that they can be used to track the social behavior of marked animals based on their proximity to each other over time.

So far, the dulog system has been used in studies that have produced some delightful discoveries: mother bats guide their young from perch on perch, bats once kept in captivity maintain their social relationships when released into the wild, and bats exhibit “social detachment” behavior when they are sick. Following these bat-based successes, Ripperger and Duda hope to start selling the system soon to researchers for use with other animals, large and small.

In terms of possible applications for the system, “the sky is the limit”, says Ripperger. I’m not involved in any major animal research, but personally I would love to attach a tag to my dog ​​to keep an eye on his antics in general. I imagine they would also be useful for keeping track of which squirrels are the biggest offenders in eating my bird seed. For now, they are not available for direct order, so I will leave science to scientists and continue to enjoy pictures of animals with backpacks and hats.