Bat Echolocation and the Different Ways They Do It by Kateri

When it comes to echolocation, even the smallest bat can scream up to a loudness of 128 decibels. Human hearing could easily be damaged by this, but luckily the frequencies of their calls are too high pitched to hear. A special muscle in a bat’s ear prevents it from going deaf. The muscle pulls bones inside the ear apart so the bat goes deaf for just the right amount of time.

The reason that they use such high pitched frequencies is because the wave has to be smaller than the insect’s wing, or it won’t work

The thing that I find most interesting is the faces of nose-echolocating bats

Surprisingly, bats could fly before they could echolocate.

Not all bats can echolocate, too, so that helps to prove that flight came first

Bats make the sounds that they use to echolocate by using their larynx and screaming through their mouth, or screaming through their noise, which also is made by the larynx. The fruit bat species is different, they make tongue clicks

Bats with large ears and small eyes are typically the ones that use their mouth to emit sounds to echolocate, and do not have the strange facial features of the nose-echolocators

Brown Bat

Bats with large ears and weird noses typically echolocate through their nose

Bats that echolocate with their noses have evolved to have very strange facial features that help to scoop up the bounce back of their calls

Because they echolocate through their nose, these bats can continue to echolocate while they take a breath or eat a moth

Horseshoe bat

Bats that have small ears and big eyes either do not echolocate, or make tongue clicks to echolocate

Some species of fruit bats that echolocate aren’t nearly as scary because they do not make noises from their nose or mouth

Instead, they make clicking noises with their tongue

Egyptian fruit bat

Most fruit bats do not echolocate because they eat fruit, and do not have to be nocturnal, but there are a few fruit bat species that are nocturnal, which is why they can echolocate

Question: Why does a fruit bat need to echolocate if it eats fruit?