European bat has been found to use the scattered patterns of sunlight to programme its internal compass for hunting and moving in the dark, said researchers.

Only flying mammals use echolocation for navigation purposes. It works in the range between 16 and 160 feet. At night, flying mammals leave their roosts to hunt insects. Bats are popular in using echolocation to find the way in the dark.

Every time, the maximum degree of polarized light is in semicircle and 90 degree away from the sun. Bats are not the only one that uses polarized light. There are many others that take advantage of light including insects, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles.

Fellow researcher Richard Holland said in a statement that the population of natural pest controller, bats, is decreasing in Europe. He hopes that if they are able to understand how bats find their way then they can protect them.

Stefan Greif of the Sensory Ecology Group at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany explains, "When light passes through the atmosphere it gets scattered and becomes polarized, meaning that all photons going in one direction oscillate in a preferential plane".

Adding to it, he also explained that depending on angle to the sun, it is refracted more or less in certain areas of the sky and thus creates a gradual pattern. The next target of the scientists is to find out the method that allows bats to detect polarized light.