Скачать или смотреть Mystery Solved: The Secret Navigation System Bats Use to Fly in the Dark is Finally Uncovered

Scientists have long been amazed by bats’ ability to fly effortlessly through dense forests and cluttered environments in total darkness. While echolocation—emitting high-frequency calls and listening to echoes—has been known for decades, exactly how bats process the flood of echo information remained a mystery. A new study from researchers at the University of Bristol offers a compelling answer.

When bats hunt at night, every call they emit generates thousands of echoes from trees, leaves, and insects. In complex environments, analyzing each echo individually would be overwhelming. The new research suggests bats solve this problem by relying on acoustic flow—the overall pattern of how echoes change as they move through space. Just as visual scenery appears to rush by faster when you speed up on a bike, echoes from nearby objects change more rapidly as a bat flies faster.

To test this idea, scientists built a specialized “bat accelerator” corridor lined with artificial, leaf-covered panels that mimicked a real hedge. Pipistrelle bats were filmed flying through the corridor while researchers subtly moved the panels toward or away from them, altering the speed of returning echoes without changing the bats’ actual flight speed.

The results were clear. When echoes changed faster, bats slowed down. When echoes changed more slowly, bats sped up. This showed that bats are extremely sensitive to acoustic flow and use it to regulate speed and navigate safely, rather than processing every echo in detail.

Beyond revealing a clever biological strategy, this discovery could influence future technology. Understanding how bats navigate using sound may inspire better navigation systems for drones and autonomous vehicles operating in dark or visually complex environments.

#bats #echolocation #science #animalbehavior #biomimicry #nature #research #dronetechnology #autonomousvehicles #wildlife #acoustics

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Find out more in the links below:

Discovery of bats' remarkable navigation strategy revealed in new study
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2026/j...

Full Study: Acoustic flow velocity manipulations affect the flight velocity of free-ranging pipistrelle bats
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rs...

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