Bats: Boo! or True?

Have you ever heard the saying "as blind as a bat." Don't believe it !

And, just so you know, these bats aren't wearing glasses. It's just a little computer magic.

Now, back to the bats...

All bats can see. Some see better than we do.

The mega bats, like flying foxes and fruit bats, have very large eyes that enable them to see flowers and fruit in the night.

Smaller bats, like vampire bats, can see but also rely on their ability to "see" with their ears using echolocation. Bats capture insects and navigate in the dark by echolocating.

Here's how it's done:

When hunting for insects, a bat sends out a series of squeaking sounds - so high-pitched that a human being can't hear them. Scanning for insects, the bat continues to send out pulses of sound, as many as 500 per second. A bat knows when an insect is near because the sounds echo, or bounce, off of it.

Some bats can catch as many as 3,000 insects in a single night.

Because of their ultrasonic echolocation, bats have the most acute hearing of any terrestrial animal. Vampire bats (family Desmodontidae) and fruit bats (Pteropodidae) can hear frequencies as high as 120-210 kHz, compared with 20 kHz for the adult human limit and 280 kHz for the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis).

Play on - Go to Boo! or True? Part Two!

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