What animal has the most sophisticated sense of hearing?
The bat’s sense of hearing is astoundingly acute. And it does far more than listen for the buzzing of insects in order to find a meal. If that were the case, why would a bat swoop in on wet cotton balls tossed silently into the air of a pitch-black room? Rather, the winged mammal uses echolocation for a variety of purposes, judging the position of objects from the timing, strength, and direction of its own ultrasonic voice bouncing off an airborne target. A bat closing in on a fleeing moth can emit 200 bursts of sound in a second (not audible squeaks but high-pitched chirps and clicks) and analyze the returning signals as the moth takes evasive action. All the while, the bat manages to avoid crashing into obstacles-or other bats-in its path. This, and the fact that bats won’t actually chomp down on a cotton ball (or collide with it) but instead veer away at the last moment, suggests they do more than simply locate objects in the dark. Somehow they’re seeing with their ears. Recent stud
