i need a flighted mammalian specialist

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if there were a lot of bats all using sonar at once wouldn't they get confused about which noise was theirs?

― lfam, Monday, 9 April 2007 05:15 (eighteen years ago)

Bats can locate their prey using echolocation without confusion even when immersed in a thick swarm of many hundreds of other bats, and now researchers have discovered the secret. The winged mammals raise the pitch of their echolocation calls to make them stand out against "jamming signals".

The finding helps explain how hundreds of bats can hunt in the same area without getting confused by others' calls, and could perhaps inform the design of better radar systems for aircraft.

Bats use the echo pattern of their voice to locate insects and other prey – so confusing echoes can cost them dinner. A new study reveals that the flying mammals use a wide range of pitches and simply raise the pitch of their echolocation calls to stand out against other bat calls at the same frequency.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10782-bats-speak-up-to-avoid-a-jam.html

― iiiijjjj, Monday, 9 April 2007 05:21 (eighteen years ago)

BAT'S VERY INTERESTING!

― iiiijjjj, Monday, 9 April 2007 05:22 (eighteen years ago)

Nananananananana-nananananananana!

― Oilyrags, Monday, 9 April 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

so cool. thanks.

― lfam, Monday, 9 April 2007 16:43 (eighteen years ago)

i was walking in the park late last night and there were bats.

― lfam, Monday, 9 April 2007 16:43 (eighteen years ago)

I saw my first bat of the year last nite! I assume they have been hibernating until now.

Oxford is Bat Central, on a/c of being quite leafy and having lots of rivers and streams and a canal and, as a consequence, lots of insects.

the best bat evah was a Daubenton's that was swooping back and forth under and over Folly Bridge and catching insects off the water. Everyone sitting outside the Head of the River pub was watching it. I like bats.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:39 (eighteen years ago)

Me and my brother used to play badminton in our back garden on summer evenings, and as dusk approached bats would come out of the trees and basically attack the shuttlecock when we hit it high in the air. Ah, bats.

― Mark C, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:44 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.dramaticphotographic.com/images/i_australia/9611240600.jpg

bats is cuet.

― elmo argonaut, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:46 (eighteen years ago)

aw ur right

― g-kit, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:47 (eighteen years ago)

I remember when I was an undergrad studying biology at Bristol Uni I got talking to a phD student in the common room who was doing research on bats. I remarked that they always came out of their roosts in huge flocks and she was like "No, that's actually very unusual, usually they emerge in ones or twos". I then had to come clean and admit that the only reason I thought they emerged in big flocks was from watching the opening title sequence of Scooby Doo.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:51 (eighteen years ago)

Austin is pretty famous for bats, of course, but my favorite bat memory is from a hike in Yosemite above the lake when I was maybe 12 or 13. We'd set up camp near a stream that pooled into a little pond on the rockface and sat around at dusk watching the little dudes wheel and swoop and basically get their grub on. I didn't have any repellent on or anything but didn't get bugbit once on account of their ravenouse appetites and pinpoint flying.

― Oilyrags, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:51 (eighteen years ago)

Bats really are teh cuet. I think that's why I like aye-ayes so much, the little ones look like a cross between bats and lemurs.

― emil.y, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 16:02 (eighteen years ago)

i've had, on two separate occassions, a bat crawl into my bedroom. the first time, i was awakened by the noises it made as it climbed into my room through the central air vent. the second time, i awoke because my cat was going insane and jumping off my face trying to catch the bat.

― elmo argonaut, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 16:05 (eighteen years ago)

well, the first one crawled, i guess the second one flew in.

― elmo argonaut, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 16:05 (eighteen years ago)

once i had a bat shit on me when i was trying to relax in the wilderness

― lfam, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 16:42 (eighteen years ago)

Bats in downtown Austin:

http://www.thewavemag.com/images/articles/12001-13000/12015.jpg

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 17:03 (eighteen years ago)

When I was a kid, my brother and cousins and I used to hunt bats in the summertime. My uncle had a streetlight in front of his house, swarming with bugs, and the bugs attracted bats. We would toss small pebbles straight up, and the bats would follow them down nearly to the ground, thinking they were slow, straight-flying bugs. We'd be waiting for them at the bottom with tennis and badminton rackets. (We never did hit one.)

― Rock Hardy, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 17:37 (eighteen years ago)

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