Infrarotkameras fingen Ratten ein, die Fledermäuse aus der Luft schnappten und sie fraßen | Die zufällige Beobachtung rückte den Fledermausschutz in städtischen Gebieten ins Rampenlicht

>Bats beware. The ability to fly won’t save you from hungry, determined rats.

>In a first, brown rats were filmed hunting bats [by catching them midair.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989425004950?via%3Dihub) The finding, published in the November *Global Ecology and Conservation*, puts a spotlight on bat conservation in urban areas.

>The observation happened by chance, says Florian Gloza-Rausch, a biologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. He and colleagues had been studying a colony of 30,000 bats overwintering in a cave about 60 kilometers north of Hamburg. At the cave’s entrance — a hole in the ground — a small kiosk protects bats passing through from local cats that hunt them. The researchers saw an opportunity: setting up a counting device and an infrared camera at the entrance of the structure to get a closer look at the winged mammals.

[Read more here](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rats-eat-bats-conservation-air-hunting) and the [research article here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989425004950?via%3Dihub).