Can Bats See In the Dark?
Bats can see in the dark. Though it is a common myth that bats are blind, they actually possess excellent eyesight. In fact, most bats can see better in the dark than in daylight. Bats see in black, white, and shades of gray.
They May Have Fantastic Vision, but They Don’t Use It
Bats may possess impeccable eyesight but use their sense of hearing to navigate and locate food. Most bats use an auditory sense called echolocation. The bats emit a high-pitched sound from their nose or mouth. When the sound wave hits an object, it bounces back to the bat, interpreting the sound to decipher what the object is and its size. The bat’s sense is so precise it can decipher an object as thin as human hair.
Discovery of Bat Vision
Harvard University student Donald R Griffin is credited for discovering that bats use sound to navigate and locate food sources. Griffin, along with classmate Robert Galambos ran various experiments on the bats’ brains and hearing to prove that bats navigated in response to echoes. In 1944, Griffin coined the phenomenon, echolocation.
Best known today as the founder of the controversial field of cognitive ethology, the study of animal thinking and consciousness, Griffin’s studies helped to take the mystery and often fear away from bats and gave the world an understanding of their usefulness in nature.
Resources
- “San Diego Zoo’s Animal Bytes: Bat.” Welcome to the San Diego Zoo. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. <http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-bat.html>.
- “Donald R Griffin.” Bat Research News. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. <http://www.batresearchnews.org/ Miller/Griffin.html>
