Science & TechHow it works

How a bat catches a mosquito in pitch darkness.

The bat calls in ultrasound, depending on species between 11 and 212 kilohertz, well above your hearing. From the delay until the echo it computes distance; from the pitch shift, the prey's movement. Just before the catch it ramps up to 200 calls per second. Donald Griffin and Robert Galambos proved around 1940 that this works by hearing.

Useful: Some moths hear the calls and drop out of the air. An arms race running for millions of years.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

Akustik Biologie Tiere

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