Echolocation.info
Title
echolocation.info - echolocation
Description
Excerpted from the website:
- 448 echolocation 44 bat echolocation 31 human echolocation 26 dolphin echolocation 25 bat dolphin echolocation in Bats send out sound waves using their mouth or nose. When the sound hits an object an echo comes back. The bat can identify an object by the sound of the echo. They can even tell the size, shape and texture of a tiny insect from its echo . Most bats use echolocation to navigate in the dark and find food. A predator cruises through the night skies in search of prey, sending out twenty or more sonar signals per second and listening for the faint echo of a target. Suddenly, picking up a return signal it veers for the target. Increasing both the speed and rapidity of the signals, it locks in on the target and adjusts its trajectory for the kill. But, the prey has developed a means of detecting the sonar and begins evasive maneuvers. The predator increases the signal rate to two hundred or more per second and dives for the target but at the last instant, in a surprise move, the prey folds its wings and drops out of sight. The predator swoops by, missing the target, foiled by the prey’s early detection sophisticated sonar capabilities, but maybe you didn’t know that some insects have developed ears. So far, ears have been found in moths, lacewings and praying mantises. Research continues and ears may also be found in some species of beetles, another food source for bats. The ears developed by these insects are quite primitive, containing only a few nerve cells each where our ears and the ears of bats contain thousands of nerve cells. Research so far indicated that these ears were developed primarily to detect the high pitched sonar of bats and are used for little else by the insects. Although the ears of the insects are not as sophisticated as the bats’, they can hear the bats’ echolocation calls well before the bat can hear the returning echoes. This gives the insect an early cies of months and lacewings detect a further increase in the rate of calls they will fold their wings and plummet downward. This is often just enough to throw off the critical timing need for a capture and the insect escapes. The tiger moth has developed an even higher-tech defense strategy than just mere escape. Located on the surface of the moth near the ear are tymbal organ made up of a services of grooves in the chitin (the hard material that forms the exoskeleton of insects). This area can be flexed or buckled by muscular tension causing a series of high frequency clicks which closely resemble bat echolocation calls. When these moths detect a bat in pursuit, they issue a series of ultrasonic sounds in return which either startles the bat, confuses it or interferes with its reception of the echoes. If the bat has never eaten a tiger moth before it will behave as though it had been startled by the unexpected sound and bolt away. 448 echolocation 44 bat echolocation 31 human echolocation 26 dolphin echolocation 25 bat dolphin echolocation in
