Greater Bulldog Bat
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| Noctilio leporinus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
The Greater Bulldog Bat or Fisherman Bat (Noctilio leporinus) is a type of fishing bat native to Latin America. The bats use echolocation to detect water ripples made by the fish upon which they prey, then use sharp claws to catch and cling to the fish. Their echolocation is so precise that they can detect a minnow's fin as thin as a human hair poking only a few millimetres out of the water, an astounding feat of evolution. Not to be confused with the Lesser Bulldog Bat, which, thought belonging to the same genus, merely catches water insects, such as water striders and water beetles.
It emits echolocation sounds through the mouth like Myotis daubentoni, but the sounds are quite different, containing a long constant frequency part around 55 kHz, which is an unusually high frequency for a bat this large.
[edit] References
- Chiroptera Specialist Group (1996). Noctilio leporinus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 05 May 2006.
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