Hildebrandt's
horseshoe bat
Hildebrandt's
horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus
Hildebrandtii, is one of the largest horseshoe bats.
This clip was filmed in South Africa on the Mozambique /Zimbabwe
border, alongside the Limpopo river. Horseshoe bats use a different
echolocation system to other bats.
They
emit very accurately tuned peeping noises at very high frequencies
and by using a Doppler shift synthesis of the returning echoes,
they can build an accurate sound 'movie' of their surroundings.
They use their horseshoe shaped 'nose dish' to focus the calls
rather like we would use a torch or spotlight to see around
us at night. The sounds, which would be well above human hearing
range, were reduced to audibility with an early version of the
BATBOX III bat detector.
This
Hildebrandts horseshoe bat Rhinolophus
hildebrandti was filmed in South Africa, using the
original Batbox III to pick up the ultrasonic calls.
