Scientists unlocked the secrets to bats' heavy metal growls

By Elizabeth Rayne published about 21 hours ago
Bats vibrate special vocal folds to produce low-pitched growls like those of death metal singers.



A Daubenton’s bat (Myotis daubentonii) using echolocation calls to hunt at night. (Image credit: Paul Colley/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Bats are known for making high-pitched calls that they use for echolocation. But bats are also capable of producing extremely low-pitched growling sounds much like the snarling vocals of death metal singers — and now, scientists know how bats do it.

Like death metal vocalists, bats achieve these low frequencies by using what are known as false vocal folds, said Jonas Håkansson(opens in new tab), a postdoctoral researcher who studies bat vocalization at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense and the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

"What helps them growl are the ventricular folds, also called false vocal folds, that sit above the true vocal folds," he told Live Science. False vocal folds are thick folds of mucous membrane that appear in the larynxes of most mammals; "these vibrate at a comparatively low frequency and thus produce audible sounds (growls)," Håkansson explained. Such sounds are hardly ever uttered by humans — except by trained Mongolian throat singers and, of course, death metal vocalists.

Researchers recently examined this unusual vocal ability in Daubenton's bats (Myotis daubentonii), which live across Europe and Asia and have a wingspan of about 9.8 inches (25 centimeters), according to Animal Diversity Web(opens in new tab). The scientists reported their findings Nov. 29 in the journal PLOS Biology(opens in new tab).

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