Evansville Press, Indiana, January 14, 1909 https://t.co/G9mgYEHdJ0
They rely less on sight when they hunt and more on ultrasound. They make high-pitched calls and then listen to the echo sent back by objects and potential prey. Visual camouflage doesn’t help one little bit, because the flying mammals are “seeing” with their ears. Therefore, the moths must make themselves invisible to hearing. But how do you do tha
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One out of every five mammal species alive right now is a bat—some
Steve Brusatte • The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us
problem that they could avoid simply by changing their habits and hunting by day. But the daytime economy is already heavily exploited by other creatures such as birds. Given that there is a living to be made at night, and given that alternative daytime trades are thoroughly occupied, natural selection has favoured bats that make a go of the night-
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'Bats can hear shapes.
Plants can eat light.
Bees can dance maps.
We can hold all these ideas at once and feel both heavy and weightless with the absurd beauty of it all'
~ Jarod K. Anderson
Bats have been the origin for many other epidemics, such as the deadly Ebola and Marburg agents and the rare Hendra, Nipah, and St. Louis encephalitis viruses. It’s not known exactly why bats are such a prolific source of human pathogens, but they have haunted our species in other ways for a very long time as objects of mythology associated with de
... See moreNicholas A. Christakis • Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live
You see, the bats recognize one another and know exactly which of their acquaintances are generous and which are not. Those that exhibit especially altruistic traits are the first to be looked after if they themselves ever run into a string of bad luck.59 Does that mean that altruism is selfish? In evolutionary terms, certainly, because the individ
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