Cognitive map-based navigation in wild bats revealed by a new high-throughput tracking system

Seven decades of research on the “cognitive map”, the allocentric representation of space, have yielded key neurobiological insights, yet we still lack field evidence from free-ranging wild animals. Using a system capable of tracking dozens of animals simultaneously at high accuracy and resolution, we assembled a large dataset of 172 foraging Egyptian fruit bats comprising >18M localizations collected over 3,449 bat-nights across 4 years. Detailed track analysis, combined with translocation experiments, revealed that wild bats seldom exhibit random search but instead repeatedly forage in goal-directed, long and straight flights that include frequent shortcuts. Alternative non-map-based strategies were ruled out by simulations, time-lag embedding and other trajectory analyses. Our results are consistent with expectations from cognitive map-like navigation and support previous neurobiological evidence from captive bats.