Bats are divided into the large bats and the small bats. With one or two exceptions, the large bats live on fruits and find their way visually. The small bats feed mostly on insects, catching them on the wing by a process known as echolocation. As was mentioned earlier, echolocation is a process in which an animal produces sounds and listens for the echoes reflected from surfaces and objects in the environment. From the information contained in these echoes, the animal is able to perceive the objects and their spatial relations.

Bats produce sounds with the larynx, an organ in the throat that has undergone certain adaptations that make it unusually effective in producing intense, high-frequency sounds. The character of the sounds varies with the species and also with the particular activity. On striking a small object such as a flying insect, the emitted sounds are reflected with only a small fraction of their original energy; the sound is further weakened before reaching the ears of the bat when it must travel some distance through the air.

Although the frequency of bat cries varies with species, their cries usually occur in a range between 80,000 and 30,000 hertz. In most species, such as Myotis lucifugus and Eptesicus fuscus, the cry is a frequency-modulated pulse of sound; it begins at a high frequency, say, of 70,000 hertz, and in about 0.2 second declines in frequency to about 33,000 hertz. The starting frequency may vary, even in successive cries; a second pulse might begin at 60,000 and end at 30,000 hertz. The greatest energy in the cry is usually in the middle of this frequency range, perhaps around 50,000 hertz in the species mentioned above.

The use of such high frequencies is an essential feature of the bat’s sonar system. In order to determine the nature of objects by reflected sounds, it is necessary that the wavelengths of the sound be small in relation to the dimensions of the objects—indeed, as small as possible if fine details are to be represented.

An important problem of echolocation is how the bat is able to detect reflected sounds, often in the presence of disturbing noises, and to obtain the information necessary for tracking and catching an insect as well as discriminating between this object and others in the environment. This problem involves considering first the structure of the auditory mechanism in bats and then the nature of their hearing.

The external ear of bats is usually well developed. In most species the pinna is large relative to the size of the head, and in those species called the whispering bats, because they make such faint sounds, this structure is huge. With its large surface, the pinna acts as an efficient collector and resonator of high-frequency sounds. It is also freely movable and can be rotated and inclined in various ways. The meatus leads inward to the eardrum and, as already mentioned, contains a valve that can be closed to reduce the entrance of sounds. The middle ear of bats is of the usual mammalian pattern—a three-part ossicular chain—but its structure is impressive in the extraordinary delicacy of the moving parts. The two tympanic muscles, however, are relatively large.

The cochlea of bats also shows the general mammalian form, but there are variations that may be significant for the special functions that are performed by this ear. The basilar membrane is not particularly well developed; it is short in comparison with that of most mammals, and its structural variation from basal to apical ends is only moderate in extent. Whereas most basilar membranes are rather strongly tapered in width, being narrow at the basal end of the cochlea and several times broader near the apical end, in the bat there is only a slight taper, between twofold and threefold. Another curious feature in the cochlea of bats is the presence of local thickenings of the basilar membrane that may add to the stiffness of the cochlear structure.

The auditory portion of the nervous system has undergone extraordinary development in bats. The regions concerned with hearing are relatively enormous, which is in accord with the great predominance of hearing over the other senses in this animal.

The hearing of bats has been studied by both electrophysiological and behavioral methods. In the species Myotis lucifugus, electrophysiological measurements of cochlear potentials indicate that response is poor in the low frequencies but improves fairly steadily until the range of 2,000 to 5,000 hertz is reached, at which it tends to level off. Beyond 15,000 hertz there are many irregularities but, in general, the sensitivity declines at a rapid rate. The results of similar studies on a specimen of Eptesicus fuscus are much the same as those for Myotis, though the observations were not extended into the lowest frequencies. The most sensitive range for this species is around 4,000 to 15,000 hertz, after which there is a fairly rapid decline in the upper frequencies.

The behavioral threshold curve for Eptesicus has a markedly different form. There is a rapid improvement in sensitivity from 2,500 to 10,000 hertz, but the greatest sensitivity is in two peak areas, from 10,000 to 30,000 hertz and from 50,000 to 70,000 hertz, with a separation by a moderate reduction around 40,000 hertz.

There are other peculiarities of the behavioral sensitivity of Eptesicus to sound stimuli that are of particular interest. The rapid loss of sensitivity to tones around 40,000 hertz may be caused by a failure of neural processing for these tones. The slope of the low-frequency end of the curve is unexpectedly steep, and this appears in a region where the cochlear response is passing through its maximum. Nothing like this has been observed in other animals; it seems to be a peculiarity of the bat.

When the cochlear responses of bats are compared with similar responses in other small mammals—as, for example, the rat—there is a general similarity in the results. The rat, however, has better sensitivity as measured by this method, reaching a level of especially good acuity in the range from 20,000 to 60,000 hertz, the range in which the bat sensitivity falls off rapidly. As mentioned previously, it must be kept in mind that the sensitivity indicated by the cochlear potentials is mediated in the peripheral mechanism, before involvement of the central auditory nervous system. When the behavioral response is considered, however, the contribution made by the bat’s central auditory nervous system can be appreciated: the region of greatest auditory sensitivity, extending from 10,000 to 70,000 hertz, is the same region as the frequency of the echolocation cries and the one in which bats have the greatest need of acute hearing.

The failure of these bats to exhibit a behavioral response to tones below a frequency of 10,000 hertz can perhaps be explained also in relation to their peculiar use of hearing. This is a region of frequency that has little or no value for echolocation. More than that, it often contains noises of various kinds that, if heard, might be detrimental to this essential function. It has often been observed that bats are not easily disturbed by extraneous sounds of low frequencies, even extraordinarily intense ones. This peculiarity of hearing in bats may account for their resistance to masking sounds. The slight degree of structural differentiation found in the cochlea of bats may represent another aspect of the limitation of their hearing to that part of the sound spectrum most useful in echolocation. Therefore, it appears that the ear of the bat, which is a rather ordinary type of mammalian structure so far as level of auditory sensitivity and degree of tonal differentiation are concerned, has been developed for a particular purpose—namely, the reception of high-frequency sounds within a limited range.