For bats, all smooth, horizontal surfaces are water -- even when they look, smell and feel differently

For bats, any smooth, horizontal surface is water. That's true even if vision, olfaction or touch tells them it is actually a metal, plastic or wooden plate. Bats therefore rely more on their ears than on any other sensory system. This is due to how smooth surfaces reflect the echolocation calls of bats: they act just like mirrors. Scientists investigated this phenomenon in 15 different species from three big bat families and found that all tried to drink from smooth plates. In addition they found that this acoustic recognition of water is innate.

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