“Discovering How Bats Make Those Amazing Sounds”
Bats are pretty cool animals, they have the ability to make a wide range of sounds that are used for both echolocation (finding food and navigating) and social communication. These sounds can be as high as 120,000 Hz (that’s super high!) and as low as 1,000 Hz. This is an amazing range of sounds that is unmatched by any other mammal. But how do they do it?
Scientists have been trying to figure this out for a while, and they recently did a study where they filmed the vocal cords of bats (called Myotis daubentonii) using super fast cameras and some fancy computer programs. They found out that the bats use special parts of their vocal cords (called vocal membranes) that vibrate to make all of those different sounds.
The bats can make really high-pitched sounds for echolocation (like a radar), which helps them find food and navigate around. They can also make lower-pitched sounds for social communication (like talking to other bats). The different sounds that bats make are produced by different parts of the vocal cords.
It turns out that the bats can make sounds that are higher than any other mammal, but their range of sounds is similar to most other mammals. The scientists think that the bats have evolved to make high-pitched sounds to catch fast-moving prey. They also found that the bats can make lower-pitched sounds by using a different part of their vocal cords, like a death metal singer (but not that scary) it’s more like a call to communicate with other bats.
All in all, bats have an incredible range of sounds that they can make, and scientists are still learning more about how they do it. But one thing is for sure, bats are amazing animals with some pretty cool vocal skills!
Link to the study
Interesting article with sound samples
