Accuracy of target ranging in echolocating bats: acoustic information processing

1.	Echolocating bats use the time delay between emitted sounds and returning echoes to determine the distance to an object. This study examined the accuracy of target ranging by bats and the effect of echo bandwidth on the bat's performance in a ranging task.
2.	Six big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) were trained in a yes-no procedure to discriminate between two phantom targets, one simulating a stationary target that reflected echoes at a fixed delay and another simulating a jittering target that reflected echoes undergoing small step-changes in delay.
3.	Eptesicus fuscus emits a frequency modulated sonar sound whose first harmonic sweeps from approximately 55 to 25 kHz in about 2 ms. Sound energy is also present in the second and third harmonics, contributing to a broadband signal in which each frequency in the sound can provide a time marker for its arrival at the bat's ears. We estimated range jitter discrimination in bats under conditions in which the echo information available to the bat was manipulated. Baseline performance with unfiltered echoes was compared to that with filtered echoes (low-pass filtered at 55 kHz and at 40 kHz; high-pass filtered at 40 kHz).
4.	The results indicate that the low-frequency portion of the first harmonic (25–40 kHz) is sufficient for the bat to discriminate echo delay changes of 0.4 microseconds. This echo delay discrimination corresponds to a distance discrimination of less than 0.07 mm.