Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted this wild colony for years.

Hi everyone! I found an interesting bit of information. Apparently the University of Ontario led study on the way bats echolocate. The Robarts Research Institute in London, Ontario collected 3D scans of the internal anatomy of 26 different bats that represented 11 different evolutionary lineages. The pictures allowed the researchers to identify a bone that connects the larynx to the bones that surround and support the eardrum of the bats. Some kinds of bats use their larynx to generate echolocation signals. Other types of bats use tongue clicks to echolocate. This special little observation makes it possible to distinguish bats that produce echolocation signals with their larynx from bats that do not echolocate and those that use tongue clicks. Scientists who study the timing and the origin of flight and echolocation in bat evolution will be able to use this discovery when they study fossils of bats. Isn’t that cool! I think it is.
You can read an article about the study here.

Please enjoy this video of a bat echolocating in slow motion!