Deep into the Panamanian night, the forest hums with sound. Chirping insects form a steady backdrop, rain softly trickles from leaves. Somewhere above a stream, frogs call into the darkness. But I am ...

Bats are some of the most highly specialized mammals to have ever evolved. This includes not only the evolution of active flight, but also their echolocation. This ability requires the bats to produce ...

Learn how echolocation has shaped the skulls of bats that emit high-frequency sounds through their mouths and noses.

High-frequency ultrasound significantly reduces the size of the face and modifies the internal bones of the ear in bats.

What do bats, dolphins, shrews, and whales have in common? Echolocation! Echolocation is the ability to use sound to navigate. Many animals, and even some humans, are able to use sounds in order to ...

Leaf-nosed bats can locate even small prey with echolocation by exploiting an “acoustic mirror” effect, according to a recent paper in Current Biology. If the bat approaches an insect on a leaf from ...

Listening for faint rustling noises made by tasty beetles on a quiet day is simple for bats hunting with their exquisitely sensitive hearing. So try imagining what it must be like trying to locate ...

It’s now well-established that bats can develop a mental picture of their environment using echolocation. But we’re still figuring out what that means—how bats take the echoes of their own ...