A method for bats to orient themselves in space. Bats have a developed speech apparatus. How do bats hibernate?

Job source: Solution 4255. OGE 2017 Physics, E.E. Kamzeeva. 30 options.

Task 20. The ability to perfectly navigate in space bats associated with their ability to emit and receive

1) only infra sound waves

2) only sound waves

3) only ultrasonic waves

4) sound and ultrasonic waves

Solution.

Bats usually live in huge flocks in caves, in which they can navigate perfectly in complete darkness. Flying in and out of the cave, each mouse makes sounds inaudible to us. Thousands of mice make these sounds at the same time, but this does not prevent them from perfectly orienting themselves in space in complete darkness and flying without colliding with each other. Why the bats can they fly confidently in complete darkness without bumping into obstacles? The amazing property of these nocturnal animals - the ability to navigate in space without the help of vision - is associated with their ability to emit and capture ultrasonic waves.

In order for the signal to be reflected by an obstacle, the smallest linear dimension this obstacle must be no less than the wavelength of the sound being sent. The use of ultrasound can detect objects smaller than could be detected using other sound frequencies. In addition, the use of ultrasonic signals is due to the fact that as the wavelength decreases, the directionality of the radiation is more easily realized, and this is very important for echolocation.

Bat

A bat can fly around a dark barn at midnight without hitting any pillars, rafters, or sleeping cows. Bats don't have eyes special devices night vision. If a bat relied on its eyes in its movements around the barn at night, it would count no fewer pillars and rafters with its forehead than you and I.

How do bats navigate in the dark?


Bats have developed a different way of orienting themselves in the dark: they listen to dark space. They fly out to hunt after sunset. During the day, they hang upside down in their homes - caves, in hollow trees or in the entryways of village houses, clinging to the beams on the ceiling with their paws. For most of the day, bats get themselves in order, preparing for nightly adventures: they comb their fur with their claws and carefully lick their wings.

Interesting fact: Just like submarines, bats use sonar, or sound waves, to navigate in the dark.

Why do bats hunt at night?

In between these activities, bats doze. When night falls, bats leave their homes and fly out to hunt. Some species of bats prefer fruits, while others, especially tropical species, are blood-sucking; they attack birds, cows and other animals. But most bats eat bugs and other insects. Bats hunt at night because the darkness protects the bats from animals that might eat them. In addition, during night flights, their wide, non-hairy wings do not dry out from the hot rays of the sun.

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How do bats see?

To navigate in the dark, these animals use sound. In this way, they are similar to submarines, which also use sound waves to navigate the murky depths of the ocean. Bats send packs of sound waves into space; they emit waves through their mouth or nose. The waves are reflected from surrounding objects, outlining their contours, and mice catch them with their ears and perceive the sound (acoustic) picture of the environment, and they orient themselves in this picture. The process of such orientation by reflected sound is called echolocation. The bat's large, fancy ears help it navigate the sound picture of the world in the dark.

Interesting fact: When a bat targets prey, it emits a sound at a frequency of 200 beats per second.

A bat that finds itself in your bedroom at three in the morning knows exactly where to fly. It sends out packets of sound waves and picks up their reflections. The waves are reflected from chairs, a sofa, and a TV screen. The waves will not be reflected from the open window - which means the path is clear, so the bat has found a way out of the trap. The sound that a bat makes is also reflected from small objects. If prey - a tasty fly - is buzzing in the room, the bat will find it. When searching for an insect, the bat makes a sound with a frequency of 10 beats (pulses) per second. Having caught the reflected signal, it increases the frequency to 25 beats per second, at this frequency the bat can more accurately determine where the fly is so that the attack is successful.

The bats - the only mammals who have mastered the air environment thanks to the presence of wings. In addition, the bat is not related to the terrestrial mouse either in origin or in lifestyle.

What species is a bat? She belongs to the order Chiroptera, whose name speaks for itself. Why are bats called mice? she was named for the remote external resemblance with a land rodent and the ability to make sounds similar to a mouse squeak.

Appearance

Bat, description: most of the animal's body is devoted to the wings. If you do not take them into account, you can note a miniature body with a short neck and an elongated head. The mouth slit of the animals is large, sharp teeth are visible through it.

Some types of bats charm people with their pretty faces, while others the unusual shape of the nose scares me, disproportionate big ears and amazing growths on the head.

The cutest bats of the fruit bat family considered a fruit dog: She has large open eyes and an elongated nose, similar to a fox. Interestingly, some of the names were given based on the shape of the animals’ noses: pig-nosed, horseshoe-nosed, smooth-nosed.

The white bat has a kind of “horn” on its muzzle, giving its nose the shape of a petal. Thanks to this device, the animal's nostrils are directed forward capture odors faster and more efficiently.

No less The bulldog mouse has a specific appearance: on its muzzle in the transverse direction there is a cartilaginous fold running above the nose from one ear to the other. The cartilaginous roller brings the edges of the ears together, increasing their area for more perfect hearing, necessary for orientation in space during flight.

In the face animal you can “read” about the lifestyle and even about mouse nutrition. For example, fruit lovers do not need the powerful locators required flying representatives, cutting through the surroundings at night. But their nostrils are wider: they search for food based on smells.

Photo

What a bat looks like: see photo below:




Structure

Birds have adapted to flight thanks to lightweight cellular bones, air sacs in the lungs, and feathers that are heterogeneous in structure and function. Flying bats don't have all this, and the skin membranes can hardly be called wings.

How do bats fly? Flight mice like flying aircraft Leonardo da Vinci, who adopted from nature the idea of ​​​​the structure of the wing of a flying mammal.

A continuous, air-impermeable membrane of skin “covers” air masses from above, which allows the animals to push off from them and fly.

Skeleton and wings

The skeleton of a bat has its own characteristics. Limbs bats are modified: they serve as the backbone for the wing. The humerus of these animals is short, and the bones of the forearm and the last 4 fingers are elongated in order to increase the area of ​​the flight “mantle”.

A fibrous skin fold is stretched from the neck to the fingertips of the animals. Thumb with a tenacious claw is not included in the wing, it necessary for the animal to grasp. Between the hind legs and long tail the posterior (interfemoral) part of the membrane is stretched.

See what bat wings look like in the photo below:



Flight

The arm with the wing is driven by several paired muscles of the upper girdle, which to reduce energy costs for flights attached not to the sternum, but to the fibrous base wing The keel of the sternum of animals is inferior in power to that of birds: only one muscle necessary for flight is attached to it - the pectoralis major.

Spine at flying mammals more mobile than birds. It allows mice to be more maneuverable outside the air.

Movement on the ground

How does a bat move? Evolution has deprived bats of strong bones lower belt, thigh and lower leg, leaving behind them the right most life to fly.

Some types of mice, such as vampire mice, have stronger femurs and able to walk on the ground. The support for them is the thickened skin of the paw pads. Fruit bats cannot move in this way and do it extremely clumsily.

Dimensions and weight

Length of a tiny body animals inhabiting Russia are usually does not exceed 5 cm, the wingspan of the smallest of them is 18 cm. The mass of record-breaking little ones is 2-5 g.

Long-eared mice, white mice and pig-nosed mice are small in size. Representative of the latter species considered one of the smallest mammals on the ground.

Large individuals weigh up to a kilogram. The distance between the tips of the toes of the front paws with the wings spread can reach one and a half meters, and the body length can be 40 cm. Fruit bats, South American false vampires, are considered real giants among bats.

Sense organs

Bats' reaction to light: bat retinas lack cones– receptors responsible for daytime vision.

Their vision is twilight and is provided by rods. That's why During the day, animals are forced to sleep, since when daylight they see poorly.

Some representatives have eyes covered with bizarre skin folds. This once again confirms the hypothesis that navigate in mouse space without using a visual analyzer. Close relatives of bats, fruit bats, also belonging to the order Chiroptera, have cones. These animals can also be seen during the day.

Minor role for animals there was a visual analyzer discovered in a simple experiment: when the animals were blindfolded, they did not stop navigating their surroundings. When the same was repeated with the ears, the mice began to bump into walls and objects in the room.

Bats bring undoubted benefits to gardens and farms. In the dark, when birds are inactive, they massively destroy not only insect pests, but also small rodents. Read our articles about these mysterious animals and what they are.

How do mice see in the dark?

How do bats navigate? In the dark? What sounds do bats make? Amazing ability bats fly and get food without vision was discovered after using sensitive sensors managed to record ultrasonic signals, which animals make during flight.

The ultrasound of bats, which is inaudible to the human ear, is reflected from surrounding objects within a radius of 15 meters, returns to the animal, is collected by the pinna and analyzed by the inner ear. Animals have fine hearing.

Nutrition

Volatile mammals have their own food preferences. Based on which product is the animal’s favorite, the following are distinguished:

  • insectivores;
  • carnivores;
  • fruit eaters or vegetarians;
  • fish-eating mice;
  • vampires.

Read interesting article about how mice hunt in nature.

Dream

Sleep representatives of bats prefer upside down. With the claws of their hind legs, they cling to a horizontal crossbar or a tree branch, press their wings to their body and fall asleep. Why do bats sleep upside down (upside down)? They do not sleep while sitting: they are weak the bones of the lower extremities cannot withstand hours of stress on them while sleeping.

Sleeping bats, sensing danger, spread their wings, unclench the claws of their hind legs and fly away without wasting time getting up from a lying or sitting position.

Reproduction

How do bats reproduce and are born? Before hibernation animals open the mating season (?). A few months after mating, the world is born 1-2 mice appear, which the mother feeds with milk for 2 weeks.

Cubs bat, are under guardianship mothers 3 weeks, after which they proceed to independent life. Ask how long bats live; there is evidence that bats can live up to 30 years.

Exotic next door

For interesting facts about bats, watch the video below:

Instructions

Almost all species of bats are night look life, which means they must have sense organs adapted to darkness. And indeed, despite the fact that bats have eyes with which they are able to see daytime, they rely primarily on echolocation.

The first researchers trying to understand the abilities of bats covered their eyes and covered their bodies and wings with a composition that was supposed to make the skin insensitive, but the bats had no problem avoiding all obstacles. Only in the middle of the 20th century did scientists manage to figure out how mice navigate in space. During the flight, bats emit sound waves, and then catch their reflections from surrounding objects and thus create a picture of the world.

Bats make sounds in the ultrasonic range, so we cannot hear them. But the mice themselves understand each other very well. They have their own special language with at least 15 syllables. Mice don't just make sounds, they sing songs that not only help them navigate in space, but also make it possible to communicate. With their songs, mice recognize each other, attract females, and decide controversial issues about territory, they teach the cubs. Some scientists put the language of bats in second place in terms of development after humans.

Bats make strong sounds, so their ears are closed with special partitions while singing; if nature had not provided such a mechanism, mice would very quickly lose their hearing from constant overload.

Echolocation allows bats to navigate in space even in dark time days. Animals emit signals at ultrasonic frequencies.

When the ultrasonic wave hits objects, it reflects off them and returns to the mouse. Based on the time elapsed from emission to return of the signal, it is able to determine the distance to the object.

Bats use two different signal production mechanisms. Some chiropterans produce them using the larynx, and some use their tongue (the mice seem to click with it).

Authors new job studied 26 bats that belonged to 11 groups that evolved independently of each other. As a result, scientists were able to detect clear anatomical differences between mice using two signal production mechanisms.

According to the researchers, the new data will help in studying the question of the evolution of the ability to echolocation.

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