Hearing in Bats: An Overview

As predominantly visual animals, we have great difficulty imagining how sound can be used to orient precisely in a complex natural environment. Indeed, most animals, even nocturnal animals, share our dependence on vision. Comparatively recently evolved, hearing has reached a high degree of sophistication in birds and mammals. No wonder, then, that bats, with their abilities to orient, find food, and lead active lives in the dark, have long fascinated humans. This volume summarizes the current understanding of hearing in bats — the behavioral skill with which bats obtain information about their environment and the adaptations of the mammalian auditory nervous system that make this possible.