how do bats see in the dark?

Answer 1

"How Bats Navigate in the Dark
Several centuries ago, it was believed that bats somehow saw with their intricate ears, using a mysterious "sixth sense". In the 1700's, Lazarro Spallanzani found that bats could fly in total darkness while owls could not. He also found that if he covered the head of a bat, it could not navigate.

Charles Jurine, of Switzerland, in the late 1800's learned the bats use their ears for guidance. In the 1930's at Harvard, D.R. Griffin discovered the bats use high frequency sounds to navigate. We now know that this navigation is actually a type of sonar called echolocation.

Bats produce sounds, many that can not be heard by human ears. These high-pitched noises echo off objects and are heard by the bats, allowing them to know that is ahead. (Echos locating objects.) Echolocation enables bats to avoid obstacles, determine size, and even follow an insect or moth. Bats along with porpoises, oilbirds, and some swiftlets use this method to accurately locate objects.

Of the two suborders of bats, only the Microchiropterans, use echolocation.

Moths often become dinners of hungry bats. Some moths have developed a unique defense: they have the ability to make bat-like sounds that the real bats hear. The bat continues on, leaving the moth alone, believing the object is just another bat instead of something tasty. Score one for the moth.

Scientists have come up with bat detectors. These instruments make the bat sounds audible to humans. Using these detectors, bat sounds and calls are being studied. However, bats do make other sounds that are not made using echolocation. These sounds, squeaks and squawks, are made while roosting, communicating with their young or defending territories."

Answer 2

For centuries scientists did not know how bats could fly at night between finger sized tree branches and accurately catch tiny flying insects. They originally thought that the bat, like other nocturnal animals, had super sensitive eyesight. Late eighteenth-century Italian scientist Lazzaro Spallanzani found that owls could not fly in a completely dark room while bats could fly normally. He discovered that blinded bats could fly and capture prey, but those fitted with ear plugs were grounded.

Later, after the Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912, machine gun inventor Hiram Maxim began investigating sonar (the use of sound for navigation and ranging). Maxim believed that bats used sonar, but mistakenly thought they used low frequency sounds generated by wing movements. Not until the 1930s, when G.W. Pierce developed a high frequency sound detector, were bat sounds first heard.

Seeing with Sound: Bats build up an image of the world from reflected sound waves, or echoes, much as humans use reflected waves of light to see. Humans depend on external light sources such as the sun, but the bat’s sound pictures come from the echoes of calls that it produces itself. To “see” in the dark, bats produce a short series of high frequency sound pulses that spread out into a cone of sound like light from a flashlight beam. When the sound hits an object, an echo bounces back to the bat. This is called echolocation.

Bats use high frequency sound because it has a shorter wavelength that can detect small insects better. Low frequency sounds of long wavelength wash around small objects and do not send back an echo. Bats can distinguish high frequency sounds out of background noise, which is mostly at low frequency. By using sounds pitched higher than most other animals can hear, the bat can hunt without being detected by its prey or by other predators.

The Nature of Sound: Each bat call has a mixture of one or more frequencies and up to five variations of tone. The call may sweep through a frequency range or be at a constant frequency. It may last from 1 to 100 thousandths of a second. Using calls of varying frequency, the bat recognizes the order in which echoes return. The bat then builds a detailed “picture” of its surroundings, listening for changes. To tell echoes apart, individual species – and even individual bats – have distinctive voices. By keeping calls short, the bat avoids confusion from “sending” and “receiving” at the same time. The bat can vary the volume and quality of sounds to suit the habitat it is flying through. When flying close to trees, it uses lower volume calls to avoid a confusing mix of echoes. When flying from one place to another, the bat uses infrequent, simple calls. The number and complexity increases for hunting.

Answer 3

As well as using echo/ sonar abilities, scientists have recently discovered that bats utilise the magnetic flux of the Earth to navigate.Pigeons have a similar ability, although they also have a means of using ultra violet light during the daytime.

The magnetic sensitivity is thought to be due to minute particles of iron in the animals' head.

Answer 4

They don't really see in the dark they have very good senses. They use something like sonar and bounce sound waves off of objects. The quicker the sound bounces back the the closer they are to the object.

Answer 5

Bats use their eyes to see. Unfortunately for the bat, its eyesight really sucks.

Fortunately for the bat it has really good hearing and can produce chirps. It listens to the echo of these chirps and determines a model of its environment from that.

So, they don't really "see" in the dark. They hear in the dark.

Ta.

Answer 6

Sonar

Answer 7

they release a high pitched sound that they can hear. if theres an object in front of them, the sound will bounce back faster than the ones that end up like 500 feet away

Answer 8

Echo location! They make noises and they can tell where things are by how it bounces back to them...not that hard to explain really but it's a lot more complicated than that.

Answer 9

They don't rely on eyesight but use echolocation instead in order to detect the landscape around them. They use echolocation to navigate, hunt, etc.

Answer 10

With vibrations on their wings I thin, they use it like a radar or a sonar.