Comparing Visual Systems: Bats Vs. Humans

White-Nosed Syndrome and the Hopeful Cure One the most underestimated animals in the United States is the bat. It is either the side-kick or essence of doom or evil in most Halloween stories. This nocturnal animal is a highly necessary part of society and their need in our ecosystem. Just like most animals, the loss of a species is due to death, disease, or human exposure, creates a trickledown effect on all other aspects of life. Due to their necessity, the White-Nosed Syndrome plaguing bats today must be rectified to preserve the ecosystem of caves and the balance of insects in the world today.

Furthermore, color vision is not only beneficial in the survival of animals in the wild, but also the quality of life of animals in captivity. If an animal’s color vision is able to be determined, then enrichment, diet, and exhibit design can all be modified in a manner that provides the greatest mentally stimulating environment for the perception of that one individual. Ultimately, color vision is an

Corynorhinus townsendii, better known as Townsend’s big-eared bat, is a nocturnal bat native to North America. Found primarily in evergreen forests where caves and rocky outcrops are abundant, these bats are accustomed to a moderate climate. C. townsendii is categorized under the phylum Chordata, which is characterized by organisms that possess a notch cord. More specifically, Townsend’s bat is classified in the class Mamalia, which is characterized by animals that have hair, mammary glands, and the neocortex region of the brain. Class Mamalia encompasses myriad species and organisms, including humans, whales, squirrels, and other types of bats. Townsend’s bat is further

I can distinctly remember myself as a young child walking outside at dusk and looking up into the sky seeing a recurring black cloud floating above, swooping and diving like a synchronized ballet above me. Now, sixteen or so odd years later when I visit my parents country home in North Georgia, I no longer see the performance dancing above me. This is a sad reminder of a much bigger issue. The issue I am referring to is the huge decline in the eastern bat population due to WNS or White Nose Syndrome.

Theodore Roethke’s poem ‘The Bat’ clearly focuses on the animal the bat and effectively conveys through the latter an important message to the reader. One could interpret this poem in various ways; however a prominent theme would be that every

The primate visual system is usually separated in two partially independent pathways; the dorsal pathway subserves mostly motion perception, while the ventral one subserves object feature recognition. The primary visual cortex (V1) receives most of its retinal input through the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). Anatomical and functional segregation of visual perception starts at the level of the retina, where parvocellular (P) ganglion cells have small receptive fields and have sustained colour-sensitive synaptic response to light, whereas magnocellular (M) ganglion cells have larger receptive fields and a faster adapting achromatic response to light [Livingston et al., 1992]. Both types of cells project to the layers 3-6 and 1-2 of the LGN, respectively, which in turn send most of their outputs to layers 4Cβ and 4Cα of V1, forming what is known as the P and M pathways [Refs].

Clicks are high-frequency and directional sounds that are used to detect, discriminate and recognize objects in the environment, including potential preys (Caldwell et al., 1990; Janik, 2013). These clicks are used to locate/discriminate an object based on the returning echo, and the system is known as echolocation or biosonar (Griffin, 1958). Bottlenose dolphins produce high-frequency broadband clicks with dominant frequencies generally higher than 50-60kHz (Au, 1993).

A lot of people can get bats mixed up with birds, but they are very different. Bats have teeth, birds have beaks. The Mexican Free-Tailed Bat is found south through Mexico,and in Central America into northern South America. Many scientists study bats. Bats are fascinating creatures you just have to learn more about them, and you will love them.

The world today has many different types of living organisms. Each species has a specific eye type that is unique to their kind. Here we will discuss the differences between the eye mechanisms of aquatic and terrestrial animals versus the four-eyed fish. The most common eye type which is ideal for image vision is camera-type eyes. Terrestrial animals consist of animals that live mostly on land such as flies, cats, dogs, bears, deer, cows, tigers, humans, etc. Aquatic animals consist of animals which live in water for most of their life such as fishes, whales, frogs, mollusks, beavers, seals, ducks, swans, crabs, etc. Apart from these aquatic animals, one genus of the family Anablepidae called A. anableps has a distinct optical structure comprised of traits from both aquatic and terrestrial animals. They are commonly known as the four-eyed fish, which can see through both aerial and aquatic environments at the same time.

White nose syndrome is a fungal disease that has been devastating North American bat populations since 2006. It is characterized by a white “fuzzy muzzle”, wing lesions, and mortality. The epidemic has killed over 6.7 million bats to date; yet the majority of hibernating bats are not listed on the Endangered Species Act. Pseudogymnoascus destructans is the fungal pathogen that is both psychrophilic and keratinophilic and it invades the bats at a time when they are actively suppressing respiration, have a slowed metabolism, lowered body temperature and a weakened immune system. Scientists have observed unusual flying patterns during hibernation periods. Early on physiological disturbances are proposed to take place causing the most impacted

+ Raccoons have weak eyesight and are color blind they rely mainly on their keen sense of smell.

While head trauma or tumors often induce the "psychic" blindness of these patients, a model has been developed in monkeys by removing all or part of the primary visual cortex. These monkeys are able to respond to visual inputs. They can be trained to touch illuminated bulbs rather than unlit ones and identify certain colors and patterns in order to obtain food. This phenomenon is believed to parallel human blindsight because when trained to respond differently according to whether there is a visual cue or not, these monkeys respond as if there were no cue when a visual input is presented to the blind field (1). It is therefore believed that these animals are able to respond to and identify features of a visual cue even though they do not report seeing it.

Owls have global stereopsis and use disparity, the inconsistency, as a depth cue with hyperacute exactness.

Thermosensation plays a similar role in predator-prey interaction by the use of TRPA1 and TRPV1 ion channels. The vampire bat can sense infrared radiation by using a modified TRPV1 channel. In other mammals, TRPV1 is used to detect noxious heat greater than 43ºC , vampire bats however, have an activation threshold for this receptor that is around 30ºC. To further differentiate the vampire bat’s TRPV1 receptor from other mammals, it is not expressed in the dorsal root ganglia. Instead it is located in their facial nerves located near the bat’s upper lip and nose. Giving bats the ability to find locations of their prey with the easiest access to blood. (Gracheva et al, 2011) To combat this, prey have been shown to reduce the bats’ feeding time

These large ears (although stunting maneuverability) allow them to compensate for their lack of eyesight by being able to hear at very high frequencies. Hearing at an incredible range allows Microbats ears to cooperate with an incredible technique they use called echolocation. Now there are two major groups bats are divided into, Megabats and Microbats. Only Microbats use echolocation and as mentioned before, echolocation is the use of emitting high frequency sound waves to their environment giving “visual” guidance to the Bat.