Bats Beat Dolphins in the Battle over Who Has the Best Sonar

Bats Beat Dolphins in the Battle over Who Has the Best Sonar

6 years ago
Anonymous $L9wC17otzH

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bats-beat-dolphins-in-the-battle-over-who-has-the-best-sonar/

Every summer evening 1.5 million bats emerge from underneath the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas, on a quest for their favorite meals of mosquitoes and other insects. To track their tiny flying prey, the bats emit high-pitched sounds that deflect from an insect back to bat’s large ears. The information from this process of echolocation tells the flying mammals the precise path of their fast-moving food.

But how does any single bat in a swarm of thousands know that the ping it registers is not some other bat’s echo? Navigating this potential interference, known as sonar jamming, is not only the province of bats, however. Dolphins and other animals that rely on echolocation must also find ways around the maze of sound waves ricocheting around them.