if they detect something. Typically, the frequency range of their echolocation is between 49 and 70 kHz, but can be between 25 and 40 kHz if something crosses their path while in flight. On 6 November 2014, Aaron Corcoran, a biologist at Wake Forest University, North Carolina, reported online in Science'' that his team and he had detected Mexican free-tailed bats emitting ultrasonic vocalizations that had the effect of jamming the echolocation calls of a rival bat species hunting moths. The ‘jamming’ call led to an increased chance of the rival missing its prey, which the Mexican free-tailed bat was then able to eat itself. Earlier researchers had discovered some 15 types of social calls made by Mexican free-tailed bats and reported that they could adjust their calls to avoid interfering with others in range of their calls. Mating and reproduction During the breeding season, females aggregate into maternity roosts. The size of these roosts depends on the environment, with caves having the larger roosts. Mating can occur in an aggressive or passive form. In the aggressive form, the male controls the female's movements, keeping her away from the other bats in the roost. He also tends to vocalize when mating. During passive copulation, the males simply flies to a female in her roost and quietly mounts her with no resistance. This species is a promiscuous breeder and both sexes copulate with multiple partners. Females become sexually mature at about 9 months, while males take even longer, at two years. Females enter estrus once a year, which typically lasts five weeks in the spring. The gestation period of the bat lasts 11–12 weeks, with only one young being born. A number of pups are left in "creches", while their mothers roost elsewhere. The female uses vocalizations and scent to identify her pup. The mother imprints her scent on the young early on. However, young try to steal a suckle from any female that passes through the cluster. Through examining the genotypes of female-pup nursing pairs sampled from colonies in Texas, it has been measured that nursing is partially selective along genetic lines, with approximately 17% of mothers nursing pups that were not their offspring, ostensibly due to the difficulty of consistently locating and selectively nursing their own pups in extremely large colonies. A mother will nurse her young daily, and by 4–7 weeks old they are full grown, fully weaned,