Unlike birds — adapted effectively for flight - it seems bats’ not having feathers or a tail makes their navigation tougher. Apparently, to add to their flying problems, their air-resisting membranous wings can’t be separated to let air pass through making wing-upstrokes easy.
But, surprisingly, bats are found to have more control over their steering than birds!
These facts arises the question - how do bats deal with their aerodynamic challenges?
Recently scientists have a reply to this - It is by generating two vortices of air that help overcome air resistance when flying.
Yes, according to a new study, bats deal with this aerodynamic challenge either by bending their wings backwards while lifting them, or even while retracting them. Both these actions may be helping the bats avoid unwanted air resistance during an upstroke.
Unlike birds that generate just ‘one large air vortex’ behind them during their wing flapping, the bats are found to generate ‘two’ air vortices at the tips of both the wings.
This makes their flight easy and air-resistance free.
Anders Hedenstrom at Lund University in Lund, Sweden said,
Bats are very agile. They can make a U-turn almost instantly at high speeds.
Concluding on the key difference between birds and bats’ flight mechanisms, Hedenstrom explains that it might be due to the birds’ having a tail and bats not having one. Rather, surprisingly, bats have more control over their steering. It is because; bats create two vortices unlike birds, which creates ‘just’ one.
Photo: newscientist.com
