Bats slam into buildings because they can't 'see' them

This reminded me of (humor) <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mjt.org&#x2F;exhibits&#x2F;foundation_collections&#x2F;depmori&#x2F;depmori.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mjt.org&#x2F;exhibits&#x2F;foundation_collections&#x2F;depmori&#x2F;d...</a><p>&quot;The key idea in the Griffith hypothesis was that as the Myotis lucifugus emission increased in frequency, the emission actually crossed the thresholds from the extreme ultraviolet into the X-ray, thereby allowing the bat to fly unharmed through solid objects.&quot;

Reminds me of a an anecdote about the F-117 Nighthawk which was the first stealth airplane nearly invisible to radar. Apparently the engineers working on it would come into the airplane hangers to find many dead bats as it was also invisible to sonar.<p>Interestingly enough this made the engineers realize the stealth technology also could work for submarines which led to the IX-529 Sea Shadow stealth ship.

Poor bats. They also get their lungs exploded by the pressure differences created near wind turbines: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wind-watch.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;2016&#x2F;09&#x2F;27&#x2F;wind-turbines-are-causing-bats-lungs-to-explode&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wind-watch.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;2016&#x2F;09&#x2F;27&#x2F;wind-turbines-are...</a>

That made me wonder how bats see water surfaces. Though I suppose not seeing them is less of a problem since they&#x27;re not vertical :P

I had read this as Bots slamming into buildings, and was looking for a discussion of lidar and stereo vision systems.<p>But won&#x27;t lidar have the same issue, with a clean glass surface? Similar with stereo vision - if there are no features at the surface to correlate.

TIL Some Hawkmoths shoot ultrasound from their junk to thwart bat attacks. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pnas.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;112&#x2F;20&#x2F;6407.full.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pnas.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;112&#x2F;20&#x2F;6407.full.pdf</a>

I wonder how bats perceive the AT&amp;T &quot;Batman Building&quot; in Nashville, TN.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;AT%26T_Building_(Nashville)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;AT%26T_Building_(Nashville)</a>

I hope someone doesn&#x27;t use this as inspiration for an exploit against LIDAR. On second thought, I hope people do start working on an exploit, so engineers can get on with hardening systems against it!

Interesting hypothetical to track bat evolution in urban areas over time to determine if selection is occurring for bats whose sonar is more finely attuned for detecting diffused returns as actual signal for skyscrapers or, for that matter, improved actual sight to avoid the buildings in the first place.