WEBVTT - Creatureween 2024: BATS! 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:11.200 Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:15.880 of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.000 and today on the show Bats Bats, Bats, Bats, Bat Bats, 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.640 We're getting scary and spooky, but not really with a 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:27.240 special bat episode. Bats may not be the horrible Halloween 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.880 monster that they're made out to be, but they's still 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.840 one of my favorite orders of animals in the world. Then, 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.040 just for more fun, we'll talk about a who's list 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.440 of halloweeny critters and why they're so special. Joining me 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.240 today to talk about the most incredible unusual bat species, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:50.120 as well as separating bat fact from bat. Libel is 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.400 science journalist and co author of the new book Atlas 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.920 Obscure Wildlife Karajaimo. 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.720 Welcome, Hi Katie. Thanks so much for having me. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.680 I have had you on before, and I'm a big fan, 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.319 especially for someone who writes the podcast and then also 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:12.080 likes to read the news for maybe ideas for my podcast, 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.640 and I have definitely your articles have definitely inspired me 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.640 before and writing my episode, and so I feel like 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:21.560 we have sort of come full circle now you are 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.920 here talking about this incredible book that you've written that 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:29.640 is such a comprehensive journey through all the weirdest and 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:31.880 coolest animals in the world. 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.840 Yeah, totally. This book was so fun to work on. 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.200 I did really feel like I got to take almost 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.960 everything I've learned in like ten years of chasing down 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.520 weird creature facts and put it all in one place. 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.640 It's so good. I look, I'm not benefiting in any 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:50.600 way from promoting this book. I want people to know 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.760 that I have no financial interest in this, not benefiting 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.600 at all other than like sucking up to Kara. But like, 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.920 it is genuinely a beautiful book. Like it's got beautiful, 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.560 beautiful illustrations and photographs, and the writing is really wonderful. 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:08.840 It gives you such a good sort of sense of 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:13.480 all of the most incredible facts about these animals. Today 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.720 we are going to focus on the spooky ones, namely bats. 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.200 I don't make my love of bats a secret. They 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.360 are incredible. I find them all cute, even the ones 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:29.440 with the weird sort of maze like faces. But yeah, 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.040 but before we get into sort of specific bats, I 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.200 think that it's always good to go through kind of 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.120 the the bat myths and the bat facts because they're 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:43.120 one of these animals that like every culture, every mythology 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:46.600 has bats in it, and usually they're spooky. Not always, 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:48.480 but often they're kind of seen as this kind of 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.600 spooky thing, especially around Halloween, right, I mean, obviously we 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:55.280 also love them around Halloween. I just got this these uh, 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.560 these cookies that were shaped like adorable little bats. So 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:02.200 I think that we are becoming as a society more 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:06.200 loving of bats. But there are still some sort of 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.679 old wives tales about bats, and the biggest one, the 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:14.120 number one one, is bats sucking your blood. The whole 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.440 idea that bats are blood suckers, they're vampires, and they 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:22.399 want they would happily suck a human's blood if they 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:26.240 landed on you. And so, Kara, is that really true? 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.400 Like do bats really want to suck up our blood 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.359 like a bunch of little adorable nose varatus. 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:35.920 I mean, you know, I never want to speak for 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.560 every single bat. That would be a presumpious, but I 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.119 do think that most bats do not want to suck 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.920 blood at all. Bats eat a lot of bugs and insects, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:47.600 They eat a lot of fruit, they eat a lot 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.200 of nectar. I think there are a few species of 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.560 they're called vampire bats that drink the blood of mostly 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:57.080 like other different mammals that aren't people. That's about you're 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:57.800 understanding too. 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.640 Absolutely, you're spot on. There's always three species of vampire 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.240 bats that are still in existence, and none of them 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:11.400 really exclusively drink human blood. Two of the species really 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:15.480 rely more on bird blood, and one of the species 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:21.000 does rely on mammalian blood, But it's usually live stock, pigs, cows, etc. 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.600 And the only times they do drink human blood, it's 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.800 kind of just opportunistic. It's kind of a bit of 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:33.840 an accident. It's usually a human who's working in very 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.360 closet of association with the animals that the vampire bats 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.320 usually do drink blood from. So maybe a farmer living 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.960 somewhere really rural, who sleeps near where his chickens are 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.640 or where the pigs and the cows are, and maybe 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:53.080 a vampire bat's gonna slip into his bedroom and get 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:56.200 confused and take a little sip of human blood. But 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:01.120 they certainly do not exanguinate anything. They ever drink the 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.240 blood of an animal, so you know, including humans, but 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.600 they really don't kill by drinking blood. There's the white 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:13.240 winged vampire bat, the hairy leged vampire bat. Those are 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.159 the two that prefer bird blood mostly, and then there's 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.520 the common vampire bat that's the one that drinks mammalian blood. 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.400 And they really don't kill their hosts. They're more of 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.240 a they're not really predators, they're more like a parasite. 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.920 And when they do kill, it is completely accidental. It 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:37.560 is through the transmission of disease. And that is kind 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.080 of a I mean, that's kind of another thing about bats, right, 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:45.000 They do sometimes carry rabies, and they can transmit rabies. 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.120 It's not I don't think it's as common as people 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.599 believe based on sort of the idea that if bats 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:54.520 around you, you're gonna get rabies from this bat. 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.560 Yeah. I mean, I'm actually a funny person to talk 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.000 to about this because I did, when I was young, 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:03.760 have a rabbit bat in my house. Oops. 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:05.400 I did have to. 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:08.960 Murder it with the dad so that we could test, 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:10.800 and it did have rabies and I had to get 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.080 the raby shots and everything. But having gone through that, 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:18.479 I feel maybe qualified to say most bats are not 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:20.680 going to put you through that experience, I think, right, 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.520 I was looking into it, and it seems like of 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:28.680 all the animals. Bats have rabies more than others. Yeah, 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.279 but not most of them don't. Like the vast vast 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:36.520 majority of them do not have rabies. That's right. Especially 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:41.120 if you're encountering them in their own like homes or areas, 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:42.839 you don't have to worry about them. 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.440 Yeah, exactly. I mean the reason that I mean, I'm 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:50.760 sorry you had that experience, but one of the reasons 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:52.839 that it happens where it's like it seems like so 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.160 many of them have rabies is the ones that we 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.839 do encounter, the ones that end up in our homes 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.159 or that you see on the ground, they're just much 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.560 more likely to be sick because they don't want to 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.760 be there. They don't necessarily want to be in your house. 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.880 They're scared of you, they want to leave. They're not 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.040 going to be on the ground normally, that's unless they're 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.520 I mean, it is true that vampire bats do sometimes 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.960 hop along the ground to latch on to their host, 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.560 but in general, a bat's not going to be just 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.400 lying there waiting for a person to scoop them up. 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:27.480 They're scared, they're they're wary, and they would fly away 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.080 or try to escape, and if they don't if they're 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.600 in your house and they're sick, that just you kind 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.360 of have a biased sample, right, because these are the 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.000 bats that are sick, these are the ones that are impacted. 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.880 They're sick enough to you know, get confused, fly into 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.880 your house and not try to escape. And so that's why. 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.280 So like, it is important if you find a bat 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.640 in your house to uh, you know, try to collect it, 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:56.160 turn it into your local animal control so that it 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.920 can be tested, especially if you think you've been bitten, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.920 because yes, it is true they do occasionally carry rabies. 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.320 It's also important not to handle bats. If you find one, 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:11.560 don't pick it up, leave it alone, and the so like, 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.080 if you do, you know, like, if you do have 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:15.640 a bat in your house, the best thing is to 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.160 call animal control and follow their instructions. But if you're 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.480 working with bats, right, Like, people who actually work with 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.960 bats in the wild, they all get inoculated for various diseases, 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.679 not only to protect themselves but to protect the bats. 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.440 They use protective equipment. But like a lot of times, 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.520 like they'll be working with a bat that's nectivorous, you know, 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:37.640 bat that drinks nectar, so it's not even going to 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:39.840 bite them. Right, It's just like, whoa, what is happening 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.360 to me? I am being held by someone. All I 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.040 want is to stick my really long tongue in some 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:50.040 delicious plants. So yeah, bats are actually really sweet, and 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:55.560 even vampire bats who have this terrible reputation, are really 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.920 really sweet. They live in close proximity with each other. 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:00.800 They live in these really tight and it sort of 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:05.280 kinship groups, and they will even share blood meals with 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.920 each other. By it's a little gross, they'll regurgitate blood 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.560 into each other's mouths, but they do that with their 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.360 kin with their families, with their and sometimes even with 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.600 friends like bats that are unrelated to them, but that 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.480 with whom they have formed a relationship and mutual trust 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:24.480 where it's like, well, you feed me sometimes, so I'm 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.920 going to feed you sometimes. And it's really important because 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.440 their metabolism is so so fast that if they miss 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.080 a few meals that can be fatal for them. So 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.080 the fact that they kind of have this social safety 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.720 net of other bats who will give them blood meals 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.880 as long as they also reciprocate is is really sweet. 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:46.720 It's they definitely makes them seem less scary and evil 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:48.920 and more just like they're a bunch of little guys 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:50.800 just trying to help each other out. 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.200 Yeah, it's friendship goals. I think if you and your 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:56.880 friends can't share a blood meal, then you know. 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:01.520 Right right, yeah, I you know, it's like sometimes you 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:03.400 got to pick up the tab and sometimes you got 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.280 to regurgitate a little bit of blood into your friend's mouths. 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.600 There's another bat myth, the myth that bats want to 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:15.199 make nests in your hair, and this is categorically untrue. 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:16.439 They do not. 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.240 All these myths are like, sorry to interrupt you, Yeah, 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:21.840 feel like they're very they're very like us centric. You know, 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.200 we're just thinking like, oh, bats want to drink our blood, 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.160 bats want to give us rab these bats want to 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:28.160 make nests in our hair. It's not about us. 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.120 We should get over ourselves. Yeah, we're not the main 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:35.120 characters in these bats lives. Yeah, they don't. They don't 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:37.480 care about our hair. They're not going to make nests 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:39.640 in our hair. If they ever wind up in someone's hair, 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.040 it's an accident, or they do see that you've tried 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.000 to cut your own bangs and they're like, oh honey, no, 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.880 So they don't really make nests in general, there is 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.800 a type of bat that definitely doesn't use hair, but 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.800 it uses leaves to make homes, which you did talk 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:04.360 about in your book. These tint making they are so cute, Kiara, I. 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:06.800 Know, I love them. I actually they're the very first 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.320 animal in the whole book because I love them so much, 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.680 and I thought they were really good get like an 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.200 entryway into what the book is all about. But yeah, 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:19.080 they's so I mean, there are lots of different kinds 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.440 of tent making bats, and they're all so cute and 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.240 when you see pictures of them, it's just like a 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:30.320 bunch of little marshmallows in a leaf. Yes, but it's cool, Like, yeah, 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.800 we don't always think about animals in general as having 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.800 a ton of agency, which is very very silly, because 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.200 you know, we all built this world together, all the 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:44.920 living inhabitants of it. But these bats, they really they 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.760 show that clearly. They like engineer these leaves to become 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.080 shelters for themselves. Yeah, so they'll like nibble on the 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.480 ribs of a leaf until it kind of like collapses 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:57.000 into a certain shape. Different species make different shapes. Some 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.280 scientists have kind of like taxonomized the different leaf shapes, 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.520 which I think sounds like a really fun way to 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:04.000 spend time a scientists. 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:06.760 But they love, they love care. 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:10.960 But yeah, the leaves they like give the bat shelter. 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.560 They sort of like rustle if a predator is nearby, 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.840 which is really useful. They can like collect water for 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.440 them or protect them from rain. And yeah, mostly just 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:22.920 the pictures like go Google tent. 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.120 Making bats so cute, so cute. There's the I think 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.160 one is called the Honduran leaf nosed bat, and it 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.840 is so adorable. It like when you said marshmallow. They 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.200 do literally look like little marshmallows because they have this 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:39.000 white fur and they're like these little puffballs. You look 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:42.440 in and they're all kind of all get nestled together 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:44.960 like a bunch of hamsters inside these leaves, and it 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:51.960 is adorable. So onto the third bat, big bat. Myth 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:57.960 it is that bats are blind. They are not blind. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.840 They do have functional vision. Some rely on their vision 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:08.080 and hearing, and some also rely on echolocation, which is 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.760 a form of sonar. Essentially, like they send out in 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.680 a pulse a very high pitch squeak, and then when 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.719 it comes back to them, it bounces off various obstacles, 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:25.240 prey hits those huge ears and then they use those 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.720 returning sounds to be able to navigate. But generally speaking, 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.880 their eyes also function, so they're not blind. They might 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:36.080 not use their site too much, perhaps at night, but 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.040 they can use that echolocation. In species that have the 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:44.360 echolocation to navigate really really well. And one reason I 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.040 think people think that they're blind is that they can 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.520 fly sort of erratically, But that's not because they don't 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.800 know where they're going. They're in this delicate dance where 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:58.640 they are locating the precise position of their prey. So 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.200 you have say a moth or a mosquito, it's flying around, 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.160 going every which way, and this bat is sort of 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.200 narrowing in on it. It's more like a panther kind 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.360 of like stalking its prey, but it's doing so in 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:15.160 like three dimensions, right, So that's why it looks really erratic. 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.520 It's kind of like flying. It looks kind of disorganized, 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.320 but really it is trying to hone in on this prey. 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.160 And they eat in these the species of bats that 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:28.720 are insectivores, they're incredible. They eat so many mosquitoes, so 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:33.680 many insects that are actually quite dangerous to US humans. 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.320 Yeah, I learned something really cool the other day reading 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.200 up on the recent bat literature. There was a study 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:45.440 that came out, I think actually by an economist that 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.520 figured out that in regions of the US where white 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.800 nose syndrome, which we haven't talked about yet, but it's 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.480 this very bad bat disease that makes bats really sick, yes, 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.360 often kills them. In regions of the US where bats 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.520 have white no disease, and where there is white nos 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:07.640 disease and therefore fewer bats, infant mortality is higher, potentially 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.280 because farmers have to use more pesticides to kill insecting 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.200 because the bats are not eating the insects, and the 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.360 pesticides are bad for people, especially babies. So it's just 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:21.000 this really amazing attempt to quantify all the things that 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:25.360 bats actually do positively for us, even though, like you said, 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.200 sometimes people can get a little sidetracked by these ideas 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.520 of the negative aspects of bats that may or may 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.600 not even be true, but they're actually so helpful to 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:35.760 human society. 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.520 This is great news, and it's wonderful to see. Well, 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.280 it's not good news that bats are dying of white nose, 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.800 and then that hurts babies. That's not what I'm talking about. 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.280 It's great news that this is a study written by 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.320 an economist. Because my husband is an economist, and for 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.800 the longest time I have been trying to convince him 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.440 that bats are cute. And now that we have an 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:03.560 actual economic study that's shows how beneficial bats are, maybe 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:07.320 I can finally convince them, Like, look, even economists agree 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.040 that bats are great and adorable and wonderful. 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.600 Ten out of ten economists agree, yes that we need bats. 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.040 I'm going to send you the study. Yeah, I was 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.000 super psych you. It was the coolest study I've read 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:17.520 in a long time. 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.120 Thank you. Definitely. I'm definitely like just scooting that over 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.160 during during dinner, going like, well, here you go. This 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.760 is this is my proof that that bats are great 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:27.400 and you should love them. Yeah, I mean that is 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.280 really incredible. I think that it is to use sort 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.120 of like another I guess sort of economics terms, there 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.800 are trade offs, right, Like, bats do potentially present an 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.520 issue when it comes to disease, but they also prevent 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.480 a ton of disease, prevent a ton of uh sort 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:47.040 of transmission of say, like you know, mosquito born disease, 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:53.359 and help help us with things like pollination, with insect control. 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.200 Uh So it is you know when when we kind 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.600 of look at something in just one dimension of like, oh, 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.080 well some of them have rabies, it's like, yes, that's true, 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.840 and you should be careful. But that doesn't mean that 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:09.280 the species itself is a negative for humans or for 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:11.840 the environment. In fact, they're very much a net positive. 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.000 Yes, I totally agree. 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:16.920 And I mean I think, you know, obviously, I think 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:21.560 people's awareness of zoonotic diseases has increased for some reason. 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.560 But it is true that bats can be vectors for 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:32.840 novel zoonotic diseases. It is not because bats are uniquely dirty, aggressive, 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.000 or anything like that. It is due to some characteristics 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.520 of bats that are actually pretty cool and make them 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.240 quite amazing and sympathetic. One is that they have incredible 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.280 immune systems to fight off pathogens. There's a lot of 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.720 theories about why they seem to be able to live 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.600 with sort of relatively high viral loads and not seem 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.679 to get sick. One of them is that because flight 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.840 requires so much energy, so such a high metabolism, that 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:05.720 somehow they have evolved this trade off where their their 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.200 passive immune system is really strong. And then they're also 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:10.240 able to just kind of be in this kind of 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.919 truce almost with pathogens where the pathogen lives in their 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.680 bodies but doesn't make them sick. But this means that 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.560 they can carry diseases without dying, which could also mean 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.760 that a pathogen could mutate inside them and that could 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:30.040 be the origin point for a new zoonotic disease. Another 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.080 theory for why they may be more likely to generate 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.600 these zoonotic diseases is that they hibernate for incredible periods 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:40.800 of time. They sort of go into this stasis where 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:45.600 their body system slow way down, they can survive the cold, 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.440 and this may allow certain pathogens to stay inside their 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:55.199 bodies for long periods of times during cold weather. So 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.960 essentially the bats are kind of like little storage centers 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:04.800 for the pathogens because the bats are able to last 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.400 such a long time during winter and that their bodies, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.359 their metabolism, and their body systems have slowed down, so 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.439 everything's kind of in stasis. And then the other reason 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:18.080 that they can spread diseases that they're really social. They 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.840 love to a lot of species live in these huge 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.520 communities where they're all kind of living in these tight 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.280 spaces like a little city, a bat city. And you know, 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.640 like I mentioned earlier, they're very socially. They share the vampire. 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:35.200 Bat species share blood meals, you have a lot of socialization. 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.200 They're quite usually they're pretty friendly with each other. There's 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:43.320 not a lot of infighting that happens with bat species. 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.840 But if we hate bats for that, we should also 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.679 hate ourselves because that's a very human trait, right. We 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.639 also live in densely packed cities and are really social 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.880 with each other and give each other hugs and all 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.760 these things. And so it's like, well, yeah, it's true, 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.840 but if we sea bats is gross and dirty for that, 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.640 than humans are the same way, and personally, I don't 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.320 think that is grosser dirty. I think that's just what 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.000 a social species is going to do. 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.320 Yeah, totally. I mean the more we talk about it, 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.359 the more I'm thinking about how bats actually are a 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:19.480 lot like people. Yes, especially in this social aspect. They 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:23.280 do seem to really just love spending time together, taking 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:28.840 care of each other, hanging out literally literally, Yeah, have 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:29.440 you seen. 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.200 That video of It's the bats? Who are I think 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:34.040 they're in some sort of They might be in a 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:38.679 rehabilitation center. But they're like hanging from a cage, but 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:41.760 it's a bunch of them. And then someone flipped the 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.960 video so it looks like they're standing up and then 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:46.800 set it to music and it looks like they're all 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:48.440 doing sort of like, you know, like sort of a 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.800 goth like rave where everyone's kind of dancing, but in 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:55.320 a sort of like yeah, like a sulky like I'm 0:20:55.320 --> 0:21:00.600 not really dancing kind of dances. Perfect. It's an amazing video. Well, 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:02.960 we are going to take a quick break, but when 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:04.960 we get back, we are going to talk about some 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:11.240 incredible bat species, some of Kara's favorite bats. I'm nominating 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.320 you too to do this, but these are from these 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:17.000 are from your new books, so let's talk about it 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:23.240 after the break. All right, So, Kara, you have written 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:28.480 about a lot of bat species and you I really 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.240 love this sort of curated list of your your picks 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.240 of bats. I'm not going to say necessarily they're your 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.360 favorite bats, because maybe that's too I don't know all 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.080 bats are great, but yeah, let's let's talk about it. 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.760 The one that is really really interesting to me, this 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:47.760 is something I did not know. It's the library bats 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.040 in Portugal. Could you talk a little bit about those? 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:53.880 Oh? Yeah, absolutely. First, I just want to say, you know, 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:55.840 if I could have made the book all bats, I 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.119 might have done it, although maybe I. 0:21:58.080 --> 0:21:59.600 Could still oop soul bats. 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:03.199 Yeah, exactly. I also want to say I didn't think 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.240 about this until we started talking, but this book has 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:11.200 so many amazing pieces in it from contributing writers who pitched, 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:14.960 you know, their favorite animals and plants and other species 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.200 and wrote about them. But I realized I kept all 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:19.680 the bats for myself. All the bats in this book, 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:20.680 I wrote about them. 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:21.400 It's smart. 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.840 I love them that much. These library that's are really cool. 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.119 So there are a couple of different libraries in Portugal. 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:33.800 I don't necessarily trust myself to pronounce them correctly. 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.479 That's okay, I pronounced not. I pronounced nothing correctly on 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:38.000 this show. 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:43.560 You go on, Okay, the Joanine Library at the University 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:47.480 of Coymbra in Coumbra, Portugal. I'm so sorry to anyone 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:51.080 who knows about Portugal who's listening to this, But basically, 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.320