Pulse-echo interaction in free-flying horseshoe bats, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum nippon

Abstract

Because horseshoe bats emit a long-duration pulse, the returning echo temporally overlaps with the emitted pulse during echolocation. Here, the pulse-echo interaction that horseshoe bats actually experience during flight was examined using onboard telemetry sound recordings. Doppler-shifted returning echoes produced beats in the amplitude patterns of constant-frequency components. Bats shortened the pulse duration with target distance, but the overlap duration was at least 8 ms within the approach phase. The computations suggest that the phase difference in slowly amplitude-modulated sound (the beat signal) provides a useful cue for target localization.