In places like central Texas, thousands of bats fly nightly over the heads of human witnesses, singing songs made with complex syllables, but at frequencies too high for us to hear that.
Researcher Michael Smotherman, of that university, is trying to understand how the bat Tadarida brasiliensis organizes the syllables in "songs" and how their communication with the brain is related.
Bats communicate at such high frequencies through echolocation ability (its ability to project sound and use the echoes to determine the direction and distance of objects). As the frequency of the bat is higher, improve resolution (get a more detailed "picture") of its surroundings.
These bats employ between 15 and 20 syllables to create calls. Each male has its unique courtship song. The pattern of all courtship songs is similar to the others, but each male bat uses a different syllable in its distinctive song. Bats also use sophisticated vocal communication to draw boundaries, define social status, repel intruders, instruct offspring and recognize each other.
"No other mammal, apart from humans, is able to use such complex vocal sequences to communicate," Smotherman says.