As pilots can tell you, flying near the ground (or an open expanse of water) gives one an aerodynamic boost. Essentially, the surface acts like a mirror, reflecting and dissipating Keep reading
Tag: bats
Hovering
Nectar-drinking species of hummingbirds and bats are both excellent at hovering – one of the toughest aerodynamic feats – but they each have their own ways of doing it. Hummingbirds Keep reading
Flying on Flexible Wings
Bats are incredible and rather unique among today’s fliers. Like birds, they flap to produce their lift and thrust, but where birds have relatively stiff wings, a bat’s wings are Keep reading
Hairy Tongues Help Bats Drink
Nectar-drinking bats, honey possums, and honeybees all use hair-like protrusions on their tongues to help them drink. In bats, these papillae have blood vessels that swell when drinking, stiffening the Keep reading
Flying with Large Ears
Evolution often requires compromise between competing effects. Large-eared bats, for example, rely on the size of their ears to aid their echolocation, but such large ears can hurt them aerodynamically, Keep reading
Nectar-Eating Bats
Nectar-eating bats have evolved to use several methods to drink. Some bats, like the Pallas’ long-tongued bat (top), use a lapping method. Hair-like papillae on the bat’s tongue increase the Keep reading
Fine-Tuning Flight
We humans generally use fixed wings for flight, but in nature, flapping flight dominates. As an animal flaps, it extends or draws in its wings during key points of the Keep reading
Flapping to Fly Efficiently
High-speed video shows that bats achieve some of their efficiency in flight by pulling their wings inward on the upstroke, as seen above. While this does affect drag forces on Keep reading
Stall-Sensing Hairs
Bats use tiny hairs on their wings to sense the direction and speed of air flow. Researchers found that removing these hairs caused bats to fly faster and make wider Keep reading