Bats of Indiana - Bats of Wyandotte
Indiana Bat

Indiana Bat flying near Wyandotte Caves
(drawing by CES Media Club)

The sound you hear when this page finishes loading is the echolocation sound of an Indiana bat!
If you want to hear this sound again, reload or refresh the page.
(It may take a few seconds, depending on the speed of your internet connection - it is worth the wait!)

Echolocation are sound waves bats give out that help them to locate their food and
also to find their way in dark places. These sounds hit the objects in front of the bats,
bounce off and come back to the bats' ears. They then can zero in on their prey
or avoid flying into buildings or trees or other objects in the dark.

Echolocation animation
(courtesy of Bat Conservation, International)

Most people cannot hear most bat echolocation sounds because they are in such a high frequency.
The Anabat picks up and records these echolocation sounds. Scientists are using
these recorded sounds to learn more about bats. 

Below is the graph created for this sound file. It is one of the many
Indiana Bat sound files saved on the evening of October 18, 2006.
That evening was when Dr. Clark McCreedy, wildlife biologist,
placed an Anabat near the entrance of Big Wyandotte Cave. It recorded
over 1,400 echolocation batcalls of different bats, mostly Indiana bats!

This Indiana bat seems to us to be saying "Hi, nice to see you again!" to his fellow bats.

We wish to thank Dr. Clark McCreedy and the Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources
for allowing us to use the Anabat call information for this website!

September 28, 2006 - Dr. McCreedy shows us the Anabat we will use to record bat echolocation calls.

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References/Resources

Drawing of the Indiana Bat by
Cannelton Elementary Media Club

Screen capture of Anabat sound graph
courtesy of Dr. Clark McCreedy

Echolocation animation is
courtesy of Bat Conservation International

All other photographs belong to CES Media Club

Bat Conservation International
http://www.batcon.org

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