Appliance of Science: How does echolocation work and what animals use it?

Dr Naomi Lavelle explores how bats use sound rather than vision to navigate their surroundings

Flying Pipistrelle bat (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) hunting animal in a forest.

Many of us have heard the term ‘as blind as a bat’ but bats are not blind at all, most have eyesight that is on a par with our own. However, for nocturnal species, that eyesight is fairly redundant in the dark so bats use sound to help them see, it is an acoustic process known as echolocation.