Bats

In this episode, we're going to talk about the only free-flying mammal- bats! And no, they're not just mice with fangs and wings.  

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Transcript

Bats

Opening: 

Welcome everyone to another episode of 8 minutes of Eww! The place where we use curiosity and science to turn fear into fascination and those ewww’s into Oooh’s. Oh! By the way, I’m your host Ms. Mallory, the Curious Conservationist, and self-proclaimed grossologist. Let’s get started.

Intro: 

In this episode, we’re going to talk about the only free-flying mammal—bats! I mean, sure, there are a few mammals that can glide or parachute; such as flying squirrels and flying lemurs, but bats are the only ones that truly fly. And no, they‘re not just mice with fangs and wings. Although bats are small like rodents, they are not even closely related. Bats make up their own group. Scientifically, this group is called on order. And just like rodents are part of the Order Rodentia, Bats are part of the Order Chiroptera, meaning winged hand. If you ever get a chance, look up pictures of an x-rayed bat wing, you can actually see the extra long finger bones!  It's really cool. 

Now, this order is very big— about 1,400 species. Bats are the largest group of mammals after rodents; and if bats and rodents were classified together, they would make up about half of all mammal species! Isn’t that insane? So you may be thinking. . . Ms. Mallory, if bats aren’t related to rodents then what are they related to? 

Because bat bones are so small and make poor fossils, it has been hard to answer this question. It used to be thought that bats were actually closely related to primates—including humans—but recent research to learn how bats can carry diseases but without actually getting sick is showing they may be tighter cousins with animals such as pangolins, horses, and whales. Weird, Right?

Topic 2: They’re super important!

It’s true that bats have very few natural predators, so how come so many of them are endangered? Aside from suitable habitats to live in, the disease is their biggest threat. Bats love to live in caves, trees, and other dark places they can snuggle up in.  Unfortunately, there is a very scary, quite gross fungus that is hurting bats that like to snuggle up for winter. The disease is called white-nose syndrome because the infected bats grow a white, fuzzy fungus on their nose and wings, which ultimately affects them while they’re hibernating. The growing fungus becomes so uncomfortable, that the bat is constantly waking up when it should be staying very still. As a result, it quickly uses its stored fat and energy reserves before winter is over. Sadly, the northern long-eared, little brown, and tri-colored bat populations have dropped 90% in less than 10 years. 

How can we help? One of the most important things we can do is avoid places where bats are in caves. The white-nose fungus affects species that hibernate, so an unknowing hiker could go into one cave that is contaminated with the fungus, get it on their shoe and then accidentally take it to another cave. Sadly we have lost almost 7 million bats since the disease was first discovered. To put that into perspective that means 1000 bats disappeared each day for 17 years. But we can help scientist fight this fungus by helping the bats we still have by keeping caves clean, putting up bat houses, and providing habitat so bats have plenty of things to eat. 

Topic 3: Diet

But why should we care so much about helping bats? Because they help us in a lot of ways! Contrary to movies, most bats prefer fruit, nectar, or bugs over blood. Majority of bats indulge in a diet full of creepy crawly bugs and spiders! Just one single bat can eat up to 4,000 bugs in a night —which is the same as you or me eating around 20 personal pizzas at dinner time. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think my stomach is up for that challenge. Although eating tons of bugs may sound gross, this is an incredibly helpful task for farmers and foresters. It has been estimated that bats save US Agriculture over $3 billion directly and almost $53 billion indirectly. 

But not all bats love bugs, some prefer a sweeter diet full of fruits or nectar. By dining on delicious nectar, bats become giant pollinators; in fact,  more than 500 species of plants depend on bats for pollination— including some of your favorite fruits: like bananas and mangoes. 

Unlike plants that have bright daytime flowers to attract bees, bat-loving plants have pale, nocturnal flowers that are often long and bell-shaped.  Many bats have evolved to reach the bottoms of these long nocturnal flowers with long tongues, but none beat the tube-lipped bat that has a tongue that’s more than one and a half times its body length!  

Bats also help spread seeds for plants, including one of my favorites— cacao, the main ingredient of chocolate.  Bats will eat the fruit, fly somewhere else and then poop out the seed many miles away.  Each seed is covered in bat poop, aka guano, which is a really great fertilizer. Guano helps nourish the seed as it begins to grow. Humans also like to use guano in their fields and gardens.   

Topic Three: Bats and technology

But Bats have helped us in more ways than fertilizing fields or feasting on pesky insects, they’ve inspired some awesome technological advances. Although the batmobile and bat copter are pretty cool, the new drones that are mimicking bat wings would put them to shame. We’ve also learned a lot from their super-efficient echolocation which has helped us develop high-tech sonar systems for navigation. 

But you may be thinking, if bats are such great navigators why do they want to fly into my hair?  Great question. They don’t.  That assumption is just a myth. . .or a bat just getting into flight school haha.  Bats are great at navigating and don’t think hair will make a great roost.  If you happen to see bats flying around, don’t worry.  They aren’t after you, just the moths you’re attracting with your flashlight and the mosquitoes you’re attracting with your breath. 

But Since we’re on the topic of myth-busting, why not do a few more. . .Have you ever heard the saying: Blind as a bat? Well, this is also false. Bats can see just fine and some actually have pretty good eyesight— like the fruit-eating bats that can see 3 times better than humans. 

And what about rabies?  All bats have rabies, right?  Try again. Less than 1% of bats have rabies, but bats that act strangely or contact humans are 10 times more likely to be sick with rabies. Any potential contact with bat saliva, such as a bite or scratch or even waking up in a room with a bat, should be reported to a physician or public health professional to determine the need for further medical evaluation. Rabies is nearly always fatal in humans, but it is 100% preventable with proper medical care following exposure.

Outro: 

And my favorite: Bats drink blood.  Well, this one is true, but I bet the numbers are far less than you think.  In fact. . .Oh no! Unfortunately, my aspiring grossologists my 8 minutes are up. . but I would love to continue this conversation next week!  Vampire bats are one of my favorite groups of bats, so I have lots of really gross, but super fascinating facts. What a great way to celebrate Halloween! 

Before I go, I wanted to ask a favor. Your feedback fuels this program. If this episode changed the way you look at bats or you have a request for another gross, but fascinating topic, please send me a message by clicking the link in the show notes. Thanks again for joining me and set those notifications so you don’t miss the next 8 minutes of Eww. Until next time this is Ms. Mallory inviting you to step outside and adventure.