how do animals that only use echolocation distinct objects from other animals, and if they do detect an animal, how do they know its a friend or foe?

Question

this has been puzzling me for a while and i would like to know how it works

In: 1

Answer 1

When animals use ecolocation, they send out a sound and listen for an echo. By comparing the sound they sent out to the echo that came back, they can learn information about the environment.

The loudness of the echo, the amount of time it takes to hear the echo, and the frequency spectrum of the echo (the pitches included) allow animals to estimate the distance to an object, and also get an idea of its size and shape.

So a bat, for instance, knows what a moth echo sounds like and can detect where the moth is based on that echo.

Answer 2

There aren’t generally animals that *only* use echolocation. The animals that do use some kind of echolocation (microbats, some types of toothed whale and a few other animals) also have eyes, noses and ears, so can use other senses to understand what is around them.

Bats using echolocation can tell not just where something is, but its shape, density and direction of motion using echolocation, so they can get a good idea if something is a bat, a predator or prey.

Ears in particular will be useful for picking up predatory bats who are also using echolocation to track them. If a predatory bat (these are pretty rare – only a couple of species) is hunting another bat using echolocation, the prey-bat may also be able to hear the predator-bat’s signals and know to hide or fly away.