Biohistory Jyournal, Winter, 2002
Research: Index > Dialogue between the bat and environment – With ultra sonic wave
Research
Dialogue between the bat and environment
– With ultra sonic wave
Sumiko Matsumura,
Associate Professor, Course of Biogical Sciences, Department of Physics,
Biology and Informatics, Faulty of Science, Yamaguchi University

    Bats address their environment using their voice, and the environment answers with an echo. Their awareness of the external world is determined by the location of the echo. Newborn bats do not have this ability. That is developed through their relationship with their surroundings, which spread outward in a cave with little noise and a lot of echo. They move by conducting a dialogue with their environment. What is the process of this dialogue?


An enlargement
Is communication between mother and child the key?
    The young of the horseshoe bat are thought to create sharp acoustic filters in their auditory system through frequent vocal communication with their mothers. This interaction gradually determines the frequency of the sound produced by the young, and at the same time likely results in the development of an acoustic filter enabling them to distinguish the sounds with environmental information in the sounds they make. We now know that when the child learns to fly, its voice is at a frequency very close to that of its mother’s voice.
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