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HONK
Male Hammerhead bats have large resonating chambers on their faces and vocal chords 3x larger than females. Their larynx is so large it displaces other organs!
iron my beloved <3 i decided to give each master a motif for their design-- veils' was teeth/claws hanging from its robes and iron is these bar-like rectangles, since someone else is using a rhombus/diamond pattern now >:3
i chose a hammerhead(ed) bat for iron purely from appearance alone-- only later did i discover that they. honk. instead of Normal Bat Noises. which is such a funny reason for why iron doesnt speak xhsbxh
Alright, so I was thinking about Hammerheaded Bats (Hypsignathus monstrosa), as one does, and I just... have questions.
Obviously these things are absolutely ludicrous. The deranged-looking eyes, the goblin-esque ears, the lips that look like they got slammed in a car door a few too many times. And, of course, the gloriously fearsome schnozz. As far as creatures go this is one of the creaturey-est. 10/10. Brilliant design.
It gets better, as biology usually does. These bats are large, with a wingspan of almost a meter. Males and females display some rather extreme sexual dimorphism - the males are twice as heavy as the females, and it is only they which possess the extravagant nasal anatomy. That nose is an amplifying chamber, allowing the males to honk at their lady loves with a noise rather like a duck's quack played over a squeaky fence gate. Hammerheaded bats are the only bat species known to mate in a lekking system, in which the males all come together in one place to compete for the females' affections against each other. The males with the loudest, most obnoxious honks are the most desirable to the females.
Hammerheaded bats are one of a very few mammals known to have an XO sex determination system (For reference, humans have an XY system). This means that female bats, like humans, have two X chromosomes, but males do not have a Y-chromosome; instead, they have one X chromosome and that's it. This kind of chromosomal sex-determination is more often seen in insects like grasshoppers.
All of this is good. I love me some weird animals, and Hammerhead bats are no slouches when it comes to weirdness. But, fellas, we've only just scratched the surface when it comes to the weirdness of bat. And I do mean the surface, because the real weirdness is inside.
...
OK so there's a lot to unpack here.
First off, the larynx. It's obscenely large, three times larger in males than in females. It's half the length of the entire spinal column. It's so big that it smooshes all of the internal organs - you know, important things like the heart and lungs - all the way down into the lower abdomen. AND it's connected to air sacs in the throat that amplify the honks even further.
Like. I know why these bats are like this. I know why their honk-producing apparatus is so over-engineered and dominant that there's barely any room for anything else. Biology will do crazy things in pursuit of reproductive success. But like... they still have to live. These are bats. They're endothermic and they fly. Their oxygen consumption is through the roof. HOW do they get away with squishing their heart and lungs that much?! Is there some kind of pocket dimension where the rest of their lungs are stored?! Sir, how do you breathe?!
In conclusion, Hammerhead bats break my brain and I want to know everything about them. I love living on this planet - there's so much bonkers stuff to learn.
Info from https://caitlynfinton.com/2022/05/06/meet-the-hammer-headed-bat/
Lookin' Kinda Dumb! | VlogBrothers
I JUST LEARNED THAT HAMMERHEAD BATS EXIST
SHE'S SO BEAUTIFUL LOOK AT HER BIG SOULFUL EYES
Also another silly not-Worldless thingy,
But do you know Hammerhead bats *honk*... I do not know how to feel about this
(Plus they're literally the ONLY bat species that have leks... only the males have that weird head shape... the fact that they literally WRECKED their lungs just to get a mate... Wildest bat species tbh-)
*LONG BOI JUMSCARE*
THEY ARE WEIRD WHAT THE HECK? Guess that's where their name comes from.
Also, they honk! THEY HONK!
In the words of the David Attenborough HATES toads skit:
"Evolution doesn't have a plan; it makes frequent and catastrophic mistakes."
Mr Green. Take that back about the hammerhead bat! please? The honk is cute.
