Two major groups of bats that use echolocation have different structures for connecting the inner ear to the brain, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Chicago, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Field Museum.
The research, published this week in Nature, provides the first anatomical evidence of two distinctive inner ear structures used for processing bats’ echolocation signals. The study confirms previously discovered genetic evidence that echolocating bats belong to different evolutionary lineages, known respectively as "Yin" and "Yang" bats, and suggests that these two branches have different neuroanatomies of the inner ear for different styles of echolocation.
"Biologists have speculated that the two major groups of bats have different ways of seeing the world through sound," said the study’s lead author Benjamin Sulser, a PhD student at the American Museum of Natural History and graduate of UChicago. "This is the first time we found different neuroanatomies in the inner ear, which give these bats different ways of processing the echolocating signal."
(Commentary excepted from UChicago BSD News)
