Griffin, D. Listening in the dark

Title

Griffin, D. Listening in the dark

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Description

Donald R. Griffin. Listening in the dark; the acoustic orientation of bats and men

This book, the title of which was suggested by my father, Henry F. Griffin, grew out of three Trumbull lectures on animal navigation given at Yale University in December of 1955. I hoped to stimulate more interest in echolocation, the ability of animals and men to locate objects at a distance by the echoes they return from probing signals.

A biologist has accepted with interest the 1940 discovery by Robert Galambos and me that bats avoided obstacles by hearing echoes of sounds above the range of human hearing. Later I found that bats also detect their insect prey by echolocation. In collaboration with a few students and colleagues at Harvard, I began to appreciate the range of specializations for echolocation among the diverse groups of bats and other animals. But I felt intellectually lonesome because so few other scientists had become actively involved in the investigation of these fascinating adaptations of behavior and physiology. -- Donald R. Griffin

Publication Date

1958

Publisher

Yale University Press

City

New Haven

Keywords

echolocation, bioacoustics, animal orientation

Comments

The Rockefeller University Library Level B QL 782.5 G8511 1958

The Rockefeller University Library President's Office OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

Griffin, D. Listening in the dark

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