The Bat that Cracked the Frog Code
(1982)
In the depths of the Panamanian jungle, bat expert, leading conservationist and award-winning wildlife photographer Dr Merlin Tuttle explores the alien world of the fringe-lipped bat. Equipped with complex sensory devices, this sophisticated airborne hunter is able to decode the calls of its amphibian prey, avoiding the many poisonous species to home in on the choicest of edible individuals.
For the first time, high-speed photography reveals the astonishing hunting skills of the fringe-lipped bat as it identifies, locks onto and finally seizes a croaking frog with deadly accuracy. This 1982 production is an outstanding example of the use of high-speed photography to reveal animal behaviour that would otherwise be virtually impossible to observe.
Through the world-famous cinematography of the BBC Natural History Unit, Dr Merlin Tuttle, who has studied bats and championed their preservation for nearly 40 years, brings to life an extraordinary world of strange intelligence, echolocation and sonar decoding devices that transcend normal human perception.
