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Science 4: Echolocation 29 Views
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Description:
Bats can basically see things by screaming at them. Awesome, right? We wish we could do that.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Dino and Coop singing]
- 00:13
Picture it: you're creeping through your house, late at night. [Boy creeping looking excited]
- 00:16
Everyone is asleep.
- 00:18
You know what that means… it's the perfect time for you to grab a late-night snack. [Plate with a slice of pizza on it with light coming from it]
- 00:21
You're being super stealthy…you're basically a CIA agent…the goal is in sight…when [Boy wearing sun glasses like a secret agent]
Full Transcript
- 00:27
suddenly…
- 00:28
Ah, the lone Lego piece. [Boy stands on a Lego piece and his sunglasses fall off]
- 00:30
Ruins operation cold pizza every time. [His parents walk in to kitchen and switch the lights on]
- 00:32
You know what never runs into that problem?
- 00:34
Bats.
- 00:35
And not just because they don't leave Legos lying around. [A bat flies in and takes the slice of pizza]
- 00:38
It's all thanks to a little something called echolocation. [Echo waves coming from the bat]
- 00:40
To figure out what echolocation is, let's take a look at the word itself.
- 00:44
We can break it down into two parts: echo, and location. [Coop pointing at a blackboard]
- 00:47
That's no accident.
- 00:49
Echolocation is the use of sounds to find objects. [Dino pointing at a blackboard]
- 00:52
So how does it work?
- 00:53
Pretty easily, actually!
- 00:54
An animal emits a sound, and if the sound wave hits something… [The sound wave bounces off a tree]
- 00:57
…then it bounces back to the animal, and they know that something's there. [The bat flies in the other direction]
- 01:00
So echolocation is literally using echoes to find locations. [Coop pointing at a blackboard]
- 01:04
The word's almost too perfect.
- 01:06
We can see how echolocation works with bats.
- 01:09
Although bats aren't actually blind, they do rely on echolocation instead of their vision [Bat walking along the pavement with a stick and dark glasses]
- 01:13
to get all sorts of useful information.
- 01:15
For one thing, they use it to find prey. [Insect moving on the floor]
- 01:17
Lots of bats hunt insects, and even though insects are pretty small, they're big enough
- 01:21
to hit with sound waves. [A bat flies in and picks up the insect]
- 01:23
Which is good for the bat, bad for the insect.
- 01:25
…Unless the insect likes being devoured whole. [Insect says this is greatest day of my life as he is carried away by the bat]
- 01:28
Bats also use echolocation to find things they aren't going to devour, like obstacles. [Bat emitting sound waves]
- 01:32
The audio information a bat gets from, say, a tree trunk is way different from what it
- 01:36
gets from an insect…
- 01:37
…so the bat will know to fly the other way…
- 01:39
…instead of going for the kill. [Bat swoops down]
- 01:41
Knocking yourself unconscious against a tree doesn't really fill up your belly. [Bat hits the tree and falls to the ground]
- 01:45
Echolocation is also useful for finding predators.
- 01:47
Although bats reign supreme over the insects…
- 01:49
…they do have to watch out for hawks and owls.
- 01:51
Sorry, not "watch out" for them…echolocate out for them. [An owl flies into the cave and the bat flies away]
- 01:56
Even though bats are pretty famous for their echolocation skills, they don't have a monopoly [Bat carrying a metal case labelled echolocation]
- 01:59
on echolocation in the animal world.
- 02:01
Lots of marine mammals, like dolphins, sperm whales, and killer whales use echolocation, [Bat drops the case into the ocean]
- 02:06
too.
- 02:07
And since they happen to live underwater, instead of emitting sounds through the air,
- 02:10
they emit them through…you guessed it…the water.
- 02:12
This underwater echolocation even has a fancy name: sonar. [Dino pointing at a blackboard]
- 02:16
Sounds a lot better than "Super wet echolocation."
- 02:19
Oh, and uh…we wouldn't recommend trying out echolocation while you're driving. [Man blasting the horn on his car]
- 02:22
Probably not a great idea…
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