Echolocation in bats is generally seen as a sort of natural sonar, in which the bats use ultrasonic clicks to navigate the night sky and find prey. But it may also be a rudimentary language, transmitting greetings and social information.Many animals do, in a sense, possess a basic form of language that they can use for communication, with everything from primates to whales to bees showing some basic ability to transmit information through sounds. But this is the first time researchers have definitively shown that bats use echolocation to speak to each other as much as they do to find their way around.
A team of German scientists working in Panama tested a group of local bats by playing audio recordings of various bats. These recordings fell into one of three groups: familiar bats from the same species, unfamiliar bats from the same species, or bats from another species entirely. The bats responded to the echolocation calls in complex ways, including apparently preparing to release massive amounts of their pheromones.
Interestingly, it was bats that the test subjects didn't know that attracted the most attention, at least if the recorded bat was from the same species. They pretty much ignored the recordings from the other bat species. It would be interesting to speculate that this is because the different species were actually speaking different languages, but there's no real way to know that. In any event, whenever the bats did respond vocally, they made a unique noise that carried with it an identifiable acoustical signature that no other bat could reproduce. The researchers think this is the bat equivalent of saying, "Hello, it's me." So bats really do possess their own language, albeit on ultrasonic frequencies humans can't hear.
Of course, there are some crucial differences between human language and that of our animal counterparts. For a start, humans can use language to communicate abstract concepts divorced from the speaker's current position in time and space. Animal language, on the other hand, is forever locked in the here and now.
It's also possible to break down human statements in two ways, by either its individual sounds (phonologically) or its individual meanings (morphologically). This is known as double articulation, but animal languages don't possess this feature, which again limits the ability of animals to express anything more than the simplest of information.. Animal language is also almost entirely an instinctual ability, whereas human language is learned culturally.
Still, using echolocation to communicate greetings is a reasonably advanced form of animal language, and it's possible further study will reveal greater complexity in how bats communicate. Indeed, the researchers are already fairly sure the bats aren't just greeting each other. They're also relaying social information, which might explain why they responded more strongly to unknown bats - they were trying to make it clear what their social place was relative to the other bat.
The Plains zebra (Equus quagga, formerly Equus burchelli) is the most common, and has or had about five subspecies distributed across much of southern and eastern Africa. It, or particular subspecies of it, have also been known as the Common zebra, the Dauw, Burchell's zebra (actually the subspecies Equus quagga burchelli), and the Quagga (another, extinct, subspecies, Equus quagga quagga).
The Mountain Zebra (Equus zebra) of southwest Africa tends to have a sleek coat with a white belly and narrower stripes than the Plains zebra. It has two subspecies and is classified as endangered.
arid grasslands of Ethiopia, Somalia, and northern Kenya. The Grevy's zebra is one of the rarest species of zebra around today, and is classified as endangered.
wildebeests. Unlike many of the large ungulates of Africa, Plains zebras prefer but do not require short grass to graze on. In consequence, they range more widely than many other species, even into woodlands, and they are often the first grazing species to appear in a well-vegetated area. 
The Donkey Connection: Grevy's zebra is similar to the asses in many ways. Behaviorally, for example, it has a social system characterized by small groups of adults associated for short time periods of a few months. Adult males spend their time mostly alone in territories of 2-12 km², which is considerably smaller than the territories of the wild asses. 
What's on the menu? African elephants are herbivorous. The diet of the African Bush Elephant varies according to its habitat; elephants living in forests, partial deserts, and grasslands all eat different proportions of herbs and tree or shrubbery leaves. 
Thirst Quencher: Elephants also drink great quantities of water, over 190 liters per day.
Human Predators: Humans are the elephant's major predator. Elephants have been hunted for meat as well as the rest of the body, including skin, bones, and tusks. Elephant trophy-hunting increased in the 19th and 20th centuries, when tourism and plantations increasingly attracted sport hunters. 
Birds and Bees: Mating for a African Bush Elephant happens when the female feels ready, an event that can occur anytime during the year. When she is ready, she starts emitting infrasounds that attract the males, sometimes many kilometers away. 
Classification Confusion: Until recently, it was thought that the so-called African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) was simply a subspecies of the African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana). 
termites is found, the Aardvark digs into it with its powerful front legs, keeping its long ears upright to listen for predators, and takes up an astonishing number of insects with its long, sticky tongue—as many as 50,000 in one night has been recorded. It is an exceptionally fast digger, but otherwise moves rather slowly.
