Bat with nose leaves. Also notice the very large ears.
Bat Senses
Bats smell, hear, taste, feel and see just
like people do. The term "blind as a bat" isn't really
accurate. Bats have perfectly good eyes for seeing in the
daylight. The problem is, they do most of their hunting at night!
Instead of relying on their sense of
sight for night-time vision, bats make rapid high-pitched squeaks
called "ultrasounds". These sounds are too high for most
people to hear. If these sounds hit something, they bounce back --
sort of like when you hear your echo in a mountain or a bathroom when
you shout. The bat hears the echo and can tell where the object
is. This is called "echolocation". Not every
species of bat is able to echolocate, but most can.
We all know that we shouldn't
talk with our mouths full -- and this causes a certain amount of
difficulty for some bats who eat while flying (they swoop and catch
insects -- eating them while they're still in the air). Although
some bats make the squeaks needed for echolocation with their mouths, many
send out sounds through their noses. Bats that echolocate with their
nose often have special flaps and folds of skin on their faces called
"nose leaves". Scientists think that the nose leaves help
the bats send the sounds in different directions. The nose leaves
give the bats a rather odd appearance!
Bats have the best hearing of all land mammals. They often have huge ears compared to the rest of the body.
