Echolocation in soft-furred tree mice

Echolocation is an orientation behavior whereby some animals can assess environments where vision is ineffective. For decades, well-known echolocating mammals include microbats and toothed whales. Recently, the Chapa soft-furred tree mouse (Typhlomys chapensis) of the rodent family Platacanthomyidae was suggested to echolocate, but not practically evidenced. Notably, there are three other recognized species in the soft-furred tree mice (Typhlomys), which share similar ecological and morphological traits, suggesting that echolocation may be a general trait within this genus. To test whether the soft-furred tree mice generally have evolved echolocation, we conducted multiple behavioral experiments to assess the performance of different soft-furred tree mouse species in detecting and avoiding obstacles dependent on hearing and examined the anatomical structures of their vocal and hearing apparatus. In this study, we perform behavioral, morphological, genomic, and functional analyses to test whether echolocation present across the soft-furred tree mice.
This file show raw data for the behavioral experiments that including acoustic features, biological implication of ultrasonic pulses, verifying echolocation in soft-furred tree mice.