BATS

Bats. Most people don't care much for them. I myself have had two encounters with bats, and I don't really care to run into any more either (unless they are in The Batcave, but anyway....) But bats really are remarkable creatures. Contrary to popular belief, they are mammals, not rodents like mice or rats. And about everyone knows that bats use sonar, rather than conventional hearing like us, to detect things. Never-the-less, they are very accurate and quick hunters.

What bats actually use is a form of sonar termed echolocation. This basically means that bats emit ultrasonic (really really high pitched) sounds, and then use the echos of those sounds to locate things. They are able to determine the distance to an object based on the time it takes for the sound to travel to the object and get back to the bat's ears. In order to precisely determine the location of an object, bats must be able to analyze minute differences in the time it takes for the sound to reach each ear. With their special circuitry, bats are able to distinguish changes as small as ten nanoseconds in the delay of an echo!

So, if you want to fully appreciate the bat, you could do one of two things. You could 1) try to bond with some bats in nature, or 2) watch a Batman movie. Personally, I recommend option two.

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