Ventral wing hairs provide tactile feedback for aerial prey capture in the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus

Bats rely on their hand-wings to execute agile flight maneuvers, to grasp objects, and cradle young. Embedded in the dorsal and ventral membranes of bat wings are microscopic hairs. Past research findings implicate dorsal wing hairs in airflow sensing for flight control, but the function of ventral wing hairs has not been previously investigated. Here, we test the hypothesis that ventral wing hairs carry mechanosensory signals for flight control, prey capture, and handling. To test this hypothesis, we used synchronized high-speed stereo video and audio recordings to quantify flight and echolocation behaviors of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) engaged in an aerial insect capture task. We analyzed prey-capture strategy and performance, along with flight kinematics, before and after depilation of microscopic hairs from the bat's ventral wing and tail membranes. We found that ventral wing hair depilation significantly impaired the bat's prey-capture performance. Interestingly, ventral wing hair depilation also produced increases in the bat's flight speed, an effect previously attributed exclusively to airflow sensing along the dorsal wing surface. These findings demonstrate that microscopic hairs embedded in the ventral wing and tail membranes of insectivorous bats provide mechanosensory feedback for prey handling and flight control.

Functional fibrillar interfaces: Biological hair as inspiration across scales

Hair, or hair-like fibrillar structures, are ubiquitous in biology, from fur on the bodies of mammals, over trichomes of plants, to the mastigonemes on the flagella of single-celled organisms. While these long and slender protuberances are passive, they are multifunctional and help to mediate interactions with the environment. They provide thermal insulation, sensory information, reversible adhesion, and surface modulation (e.g., superhydrophobicity). This review will present various functions that biological hairs have been discovered to carry out, with the hairs spanning across six orders of magnitude in size, from the millimeter-thick fur of mammals down to the nanometer-thick fibrillar ultrastructures on bateriophages. The hairs are categorized according to their functions, including protection (e.g., thermal regulation and defense), locomotion, feeding, and sensing. By understanding the versatile functions of biological hairs, bio-inspired solutions may be developed across length scales.

Hair, there and everywhere: A comparison of bat wing sensory hair distribution

Bat wing membranes are composed of specialized skin that is covered with small sensory hairs which are likely mechanosensory and have been suggested to help bats sense airflow during flight. These sensory hairs have to date been studied in only a few of the more than 1,400 bat species around the world. Little is known about the diversity of the sensory hair network across the bat phylogeny. In this study, we use high-resolution photomicrographs of preserved bat wings from 17 species in 12 families to characterize the distribution of sensory hairs along the wing and among species. We identify general patterns of sensory hair distribution across species, including the apparent relationships of sensory hairs to intramembranous wing muscles, the network of connective tissues in the wing membrane, and the bones of the forelimb. We also describe distinctive clustering of these sensory structures in some species. We also quantified sensory hair density in several regions of interest in the propatagium, plagiopatagium, and dactylopagatia, finding that sensory hair density was higher proximally than distally. This examination of the anatomical organization of the sensory hair network in a comparative context provides a framework for existing research on sensory hair function and highlights avenues for further research.