A robot bat sheds new light on how they hunt in darkness

The lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) is a medium-sized bat found in Central and North America. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Biologists and engineers have joined forces to build a new robot bat that's helping us understand how bats use echolocation to hunt for food. By creating a robot that can echolocate, the team mimicked a bat's flight path and explained how bats can quickly determine whether or not their prey is on a leaf. This new bat's eye view is detailed in a study recently published in the The study was led in part by bat scientist and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute research associate Inga Geipel .