[News] In Bats and Whales, Convergence in Echolocation Ability Runs Deep

[Moontanman]

In Bats and Whales, Convergence in Echolocation Ability Runs Deep

 

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2010) — Only some bats and toothed whales rely on sophisticated echolocation, in which they emit sonar pulses and process returning echoes, to detect and track down small prey. Now, two new studies in the January 26th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that bats' and whales' remarkable ability and the high-frequency hearing it depends on are shared at a much deeper level than anyone would have anticipated -- all the way down to the molecular level.

 

In bats and whales, convergence in echolocation ability runs deep