Sounds of the Bats

Spectograms from Bats in Arabia

Recorded by Drew Gardener, provided by Fran Gillespie

For the full article see Bats in Qatar.

This seems to be a typical pipistrelle echolocation call, with the ‘hockey stick’ shaped pulses. Kuhl’s pipistrelle is reported to have its loudest frequency centred on 40kHz, so I am pretty sure that is what this record is. Taken flying over the trees planted in the central reservation on 19th street in Abu Dhabi, 25 March 2008.

This is a mouse tailed bat echolocation call in a cave on the western flanks of Jebel Hafeet... with the loudest part of the call at the second harmonic at 35 kHz, and a series of harmonics centred on 17, 35, 53, 70 and 86 kHz.

R hardwickei is known to have calls with a series of harmonics and these are reported at 18–20 kHz (first harmonic), 36–40 kHz (second harmonic), 56–60 kHz (third harmonic), and 75–80 kHz (fourth harmonic). The second harmonic is the strongest component, with the third harmonic 2 to 10 dB weaker, and the first and fourth harmonics about 10 to 20 dB weaker than the second (Simmons et al 1984). This is very similar and I wonder whether the Hafeet species could be hardwickei? I can’t find any info on the calls of R muscatellum.

Simmons, J. A., S. A. Kick, et al. (1984). "Echolocation and hearing in the mouse-tailed bat,Rhinopoma hardwickei: acoustic evolution of echolocation in bats " Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology 154(3): 1432-1351.

Frances Gillespie has contributed to several publications related to Qatar, is the author of Discovering Qatar and also writes regular feature articles for a national newspaper on the cultural heritage and natural history of the country. She is a former chairperson of the Qatar Natural History Group, and is still active on the committee.