Category: Mammals
Despite its larger than life name, the royal antelope (Neotragus pygmaeus) is the smallest of all antelopes. Growing up to only 10″ tall and weighing about 6 pounds, they are about as big as a rabbit. Living in the dense, moist undergrowth of forests in West Africa, they are nocturnal, highly alert, and extremely shy – which can make observations of its behavior difficult. Their main strategy for avoiding predators is blending in, hiding, and failing that, zipping away through the underbrush!
Bats: The Only True-Flying Mammal
Bats, the only mammal capable of true flight, are not blind - their eyes are just fine, thank you very much. But instead of eyes, most bats rely on an incredibly fine-tuned sense of hearing when they fly and hunt. Using a technique called echolocation, they emit high-pitched calls (usually above the range of human hearing), using the echos that are reflected back to them as a means of navigation and locating objects. The ears, auditory cortex, and (in a few cases) even noses of some bats are extraordinarily specialized for echolocation; there are even bats that have adapted the frequency of their calls to frequencies above or below what their favorite prey can hear!
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