Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 533
THE INTERNAL AUDITORY SYSTEM OF THE BAT'S EAR. TO COCHLEA tensor tympani muscle „MIDDLE EAR. EXTERNAL EAR eardrum. TO INNER EAR oval window. TO AUDITORY. NERVE malleus incus stapes. I. 19. Abbasi stapedius muscle. An insect eating bat can chuckle at staggeringly fast speeds at such high pitch that if a perfect protective system had not been devised, the sounds it emits could damage its own ears. This problem is resolved by the creation of the stapedius muscle in the middle ear attached to three tiny bones, the malleus, the incus and the stapes, which are responsible for transmitting the sound waves to the internal ear. At each click the bat emits, this muscle pulls aside the stapes which touches the eardrum; hence, no sound of the click is directly transmitted to the internal ear. The frequency of clicks and such momentary breaks of contact is a make and break system which never fails despite its high frequency. Such bats are known to emit these sounds more than 200 times per second and this muscle can keep pace with these rapid variations. . Yet when the sound strikes against a solid object and returns to the ear, the contact of the bone with the drum is immediately rehabilitated so that no echo is ever missed by the bat during the innumerable intervals of disconnection.