Egyptian Fruit Bats Argue

You're probably aware that bats use high-pitched squeals to connect and communicate with each other. But you probably didn't know how specific such communications could get. Researchers at Tel Aviv University used a machine-learning algorithm to recognize bats' intonations and the messages they may be trying to convey, "translating" 15,000 calls into several specific messages—more than 60 percent were arguments about four specific things: food, sleep positions, invasion of personal space, or unwanted advances.