Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Call Parameters And Facial Features In Bats: A Surprising Failure Of Form Following Function, Amanda Goudy-Trainor, Patricia W. Freeman

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

We attempted to correlate echolocation call parameters to a comprehensive array of ear and nose measurements from 12 families of bats. Surprisingly, we failed to find any significant relationships. We did find consistent differences between nasal and oral emitters such as: (a) nasal emitters have higher frequencies with maximum energy for their size than oral emitters, (b) nasal emitting bats tend to have longer, narrower skulls, and (c) nasal emitters have a shorter distance from the nostril to the eye (muzzle length).