Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.
Speaker 1: See if you have any bath houses in your yard
Speaker 1: on your trees. I don't have any bath houses, but
Speaker 1: I have a friend with bad houses. Did did they
Speaker 1: actually have bats living in them? Because that's the heart
Speaker 1: and anybody can buy them at the Lows Home Depot
Speaker 1: and nail them to trees. But you got to nail
Speaker 1: them in just the right place so the sun's hitting
Speaker 1: them at the right time, so they're just they're warmed
Speaker 1: enough that in they're they're high enough off the ground
Speaker 1: that they're attractive real estate opportunities for the bat world.
Speaker 1: I believe her bat habitat has been successful. She's a
Speaker 1: bat devotee because because my my my previous house, I
Speaker 1: built one of these things. I nailed it up there.
Speaker 1: I was really hopeful we get some bats zipping around
Speaker 1: the backyard eating up in sects, and never happen. So
Speaker 1: I had like a bat for close in my backyard
Speaker 1: that weeds growing all over it. Yeah, all the other
Speaker 1: birds just kind of roosting on it. Yeah, just like
Speaker 1: wasps or something moving into it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well,
Speaker 1: do you have any direct like that experiences, like you've
Speaker 1: ever been attacked by a bat, which is highly unusual
Speaker 1: by the way, No, no, no, I do not have
Speaker 1: any bad attack stories. That's some Some had some cool
Speaker 1: encounters with bats on trips. When when my wife and
Speaker 1: I went to Costa Rico, we got to see uh,
Speaker 1: we went on one of these night nature hikes in
Speaker 1: the jungle and we got to see bats zipping down
Speaker 1: and skimming fish a little bit of fish on the
Speaker 1: top of a pond. That was nice. And when we
Speaker 1: went on our honeymoon in um in Mexico, we uh
Speaker 1: there were fruit bats in the area and uh, and
Speaker 1: we were talking to some of the other people were
Speaker 1: staying there. Everybody was in kind of like a little
Speaker 1: hot bungalow type of the thing, and we were noticing
Speaker 1: that that they had plastic screens up um high up
Speaker 1: in the roof. And you're thinking, oh, I guess that's
Speaker 1: to keep wind from blowing in or whatever, but that
Speaker 1: it was there to keep the fruit bats from coming
Speaker 1: in there and uh and roosting, because they would they
Speaker 1: would get into the huts. They would roost up there
Speaker 1: and then they they would just poop all over the place.
Speaker 1: So I never got to see the fruit bats, but
Speaker 1: there are lots of stories about it. And I kept thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: if I, if I look closely, I'll see them. And
Speaker 1: there is nothing like seeing some some bats flying around.
Speaker 1: If you're you know, just at the sun's going down
Speaker 1: and out of the corner of your eyes, you might
Speaker 1: might just think of birds or insects, but then you
Speaker 1: start noticing you realize all the bats are out, and
Speaker 1: it's it's beautiful. I remember seeing some of the Grand
Speaker 1: Canyon and that was that was just really really beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, and of course that's a wonderful
Speaker 1: backdrop to see it. But I was thinking even in
Speaker 1: my suburban upbringing, you know, at night under the lights,
Speaker 1: just seeing them swarm around was like this incredible thing.
Speaker 1: And that was very curious about them. And I remember
Speaker 1: seeing them at a zoo and seeing them up close
Speaker 1: and being completely just blown away because in front of
Speaker 1: me was what looked like to be a common and sister. Right,
Speaker 1: you look at these guys really closely in these gals
Speaker 1: and uh some of the physiology grandfather. But I did um,
Speaker 1: it actually sounds like maybe it burped at me. I
Speaker 1: don't know. But you look the physiology of these guys
Speaker 1: and then you really began to see, um, some some
Speaker 1: interesting traits and and I'm not not to be crass,
Speaker 1: but I mean the woman I really got to look
Speaker 1: at closely. The penis was very apparent. U. So you
Speaker 1: began to look at that in the physiology of the
Speaker 1: wings and we'll talk more about this, the arms and
Speaker 1: the fingers that that seemed to be very similar to ours,
Speaker 1: and you began to think, Wow, this creature is is
Speaker 1: very unique, not just because yeah, yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: that's what people tend to think of when they yeah,
Speaker 1: it is not. It is far more complex and and unique.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk a little bit more about that. Um,
Speaker 1: but let's talk about the folklore, oh behind the bat. Well, UM,
Speaker 1: it's it's the most obvious thing that comes to people's mind,
Speaker 1: especially Western Western minds, is of course that the bat
Speaker 1: is a symbol of evil. The bat is a symbol
Speaker 1: of of of vampires in disguise, and a lot of
Speaker 1: this goes to the fact that you have you have
Speaker 1: bats that when the sun goes down, they emerge from caves.
Speaker 1: So they're emerging from the underworld when God's light leaves us.
Speaker 1: They're flying around in the dark, and of course we
Speaker 1: end up with all sorts of stories about them flying
Speaker 1: into people's hair or attacking people, which most of that
Speaker 1: is is WHOI But certainly you do have vampire bats
Speaker 1: that will have given the opportunity lap up a little
Speaker 1: human blood or cat well cal's primarily they're they're they're
Speaker 1: more favorite meal. But uh, but then you also have bats.
Speaker 1: Bats are of course susceptible to raby, so you will
Speaker 1: have encound situations where bats will become rapid and will
Speaker 1: become a problem. But but yeah, so evil bats easy
Speaker 1: to wrap your head around that because they're emerging from
Speaker 1: the underworld and they're flying over the place. Well, and
Speaker 1: the vampire bats, as you had um just brought up,
Speaker 1: have like you know, I guess you could say the
Speaker 1: things um. And so you look at them, and you
Speaker 1: can see fifteen sixteenth century settlers in the United States,
Speaker 1: particularly when you begin to see some of this four
Speaker 1: folklore really start to come up, and perhaps even witnessing
Speaker 1: one of your cows being you know, blood sucked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course your cow being attacked and especially back
Speaker 1: in the day, I mean that was that was severe,
Speaker 1: that was major business. I mean you would have people
Speaker 1: would be brought up on witchcraft trials due to animal
Speaker 1: deaths because I mean in part because you know, you're
Speaker 1: living in an enlightened time with all of this folklore,
Speaker 1: but also because it's a serious business. That's your livelihood
Speaker 1: out there, and something's drinking its blood. Yes, So you
Speaker 1: can see how these stories start to get um, you know,
Speaker 1: bandied about. And then you've got this sort of vampire mythology,
Speaker 1: and of course and you've got brand Stokers, Dracula and
Speaker 1: forever more do you have the bat in the vampire
Speaker 1: inextrictably linked together? Now, it's interesting, um to to quickly
Speaker 1: dive out of folklore and then scurry back into it. Um.
Speaker 1: We have about we have over a thousand, over eleven
Speaker 1: different species of bats in the world. Um. They make
Speaker 1: up about a quarter of all mammal species. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there are forty five different species of bats alone in
Speaker 1: the United States and Canada alone. And if we look
Speaker 1: at bats overall, we have mega bats, which are the
Speaker 1: large bats that are found in Old World tropical rainforest Australia, Asia, Africa,
Speaker 1: and then you have the microbats, which are the ones
Speaker 1: that are gonna occur you know, the United States, Western World, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to me that in those western the
Speaker 1: western environments where you have the microbats, that's where you
Speaker 1: see the evil ideas come to mind. But when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with the mega bats, the which which generally we're
Speaker 1: talking about root eating bats, large wolfish looking creatures, which
Speaker 1: long muzzle, long muzzle, which in a way could conceivably
Speaker 1: look a little creepier because they're bigger. But but but
Speaker 1: also those these are the places where you find more
Speaker 1: benevolent versions of the bat and folklore. For instance, in
Speaker 1: Mayan mythology, they had they had a bad god um
Speaker 1: which was named camazots um and uh and camazots means
Speaker 1: death bats, so I guess he well, he wasn't completely benevolent,
Speaker 1: but still uh, you know, he was big enough to
Speaker 1: be a god. He wasn't reduced to demon hood. He
Speaker 1: was he was a major player in the local cosmology. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Chinese mythology sheds a positive light on the bats, where
Speaker 1: they're viewed as symbols of good luck, and both the
Speaker 1: Apache and Cherokee people's of North America enjoyed the bat
Speaker 1: and viewed their presence as a symbol to something goodless
Speaker 1: about happened. So it's a it's a good omen to
Speaker 1: see the bat in the sky. What's the way I
Speaker 1: I feel like I tend to look at him, you know,
Speaker 1: if I if I noticed bats around, it's that's a
Speaker 1: good day right now. And we'll talk about more about
Speaker 1: the benefits of bats and why they're really important to
Speaker 1: the ecosystem. But let's talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the physical description of bats. Um As you had said,
Speaker 1: there's more than a thousand different species, and the size
Speaker 1: is very greatly. The smallest is the bumblebee bat, and
Speaker 1: that has I know, adorable right a six inch wingspan,
Speaker 1: while a Malayan flying foxes wingspan is six ft wide,
Speaker 1: which might strike tear into the heart if you happen
Speaker 1: to just look up in the night sky. But still fascinating.
Speaker 1: This the sort of variety here, Oh, real quickly. The
Speaker 1: bumble bee bat also known as kitties hog nos bat,
Speaker 1: which which draws an important point about the whole bats
Speaker 1: are evil, is that bats are often to to humanize
Speaker 1: um rather possibly ugly to behold or or at least there.
Speaker 1: Their features are often exaggerated, whereas a mouse, we know
Speaker 1: what a mouse looks like. And certainly a lot of
Speaker 1: the mega mats they have very their their heads tend
Speaker 1: to resemble foxes, in myself a little more traditional, if
Speaker 1: you will. Where's the microbats? You see some crazy stuff
Speaker 1: like like the wrinkle face back, which will discuss later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I did want to um mention the Mega Carptera,
Speaker 1: that's that's what you're referring to, the mega's there um
Speaker 1: as you said, the flying fox. These these guys are
Speaker 1: mostly vegetarians and they do feed on fruit and pollen.
Speaker 1: Hence your point. They seem to have a little bit
Speaker 1: better of a reputation um and it's parts of the world.
Speaker 1: And then the Microcryptia is as you said. You know,
Speaker 1: it's smaller, and it's got the pug nosed dog look
Speaker 1: and it's a little bit odder looking and they're found
Speaker 1: all around the world, and they are carnivores and they
Speaker 1: feed primarily on insects. And I did want to point
Speaker 1: out that bats belong to their own taxonic grouping uh Caroptera,
Speaker 1: which means winghand. So we'll check we'll check out that
Speaker 1: little wing hand in a moment. That's it's it's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: But but first let's take a we we've walked through folklore,
Speaker 1: we've walked through a little bit of taxonomy. Now let's
Speaker 1: tiptoe just a little bit through philosophy before we really
Speaker 1: get into the world of the bat. Because as if
Speaker 1: we're putting all this together and we're coming this from
Speaker 1: a human perspective, Uh so we're we're bringing our human
Speaker 1: baggage with us, and we're trying to understand in a sense,
Speaker 1: what it is to be a bat? What is the
Speaker 1: bad experience? And there's actually a really awesome piece of
Speaker 1: philosophical pondering from American philosopher Thomas Nagle, who was published
Speaker 1: in The Philosophical Review back in four and it's um
Speaker 1: and he basically asked a question, what is it like
Speaker 1: to be a bat? And it's it's ultimately about the
Speaker 1: limits of of our our our human perspective, and about
Speaker 1: how when we're trying to imagine an alien perspective, be
Speaker 1: it that of a bat, that of your dog, your cat,
Speaker 1: that of a potential extraterrestrial species, they are there are
Speaker 1: certain walls there that we just can't get past to
Speaker 1: read just a quick quote from it. Here, Nagel says, bats,
Speaker 1: although more closely related to us uh than those other species,
Speaker 1: nevertheless present a range of activity and a sensory apparatus
Speaker 1: so different from ours that the problem I want to
Speaker 1: pose is exceptionally vivid, even without the benefit of philosophical reflection.
Speaker 1: Anyone who has spent some time in an enclosed space
Speaker 1: with an excited bat, I love that knows what it
Speaker 1: is to encounter a fundamentally alien form of life. And
Speaker 1: then he goes on to say bats sonar, though clearly
Speaker 1: a form of perception, is not similar in its operation
Speaker 1: to any sense that we possess, and there is no
Speaker 1: reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we
Speaker 1: can experience or imagine. This appears to create difficulties for
Speaker 1: the notion of what it is like to be a bat.
Speaker 1: And what I think is interesting about that is that
Speaker 1: and yet we we can't help but try, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're gonna try to, and that we're just a little
Speaker 1: bit squeak through and get into this because it's so
Speaker 1: fascinating to me. I was thinking about it um in
Speaker 1: the same terms of when we were talking about sepal
Speaker 1: of pods and our inability to truly understand them because
Speaker 1: they're communicating in a way that that we would never
Speaker 1: be able to be living in a different sensory world understand. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And they are experiencing a color spectrum that we can't
Speaker 1: even begin to understand because we don't have have the
Speaker 1: machinery for it. Um. That being said, though, that we
Speaker 1: can kind of get a glimpse into the world of
Speaker 1: bats and how very cool it is. And we will
Speaker 1: talk about eto location uh in this podcast, but we
Speaker 1: have another one coming up that is devoted entirely to
Speaker 1: that because you talk about the doors of perception flying
Speaker 1: open when it comes to bats and their ability to
Speaker 1: see and I'm saying that in quote marks, Uh, it
Speaker 1: is amazing stuff. Yeah. So where do bats come from?
Speaker 1: They didn't just fly out of a hole in the
Speaker 1: underworld one day. They of course evolved like everything else
Speaker 1: on Earth. And Uh, as best we can tell from
Speaker 1: fossil evidence, they came about about fifty million years ago.
Speaker 1: That's about how far back we have to look to
Speaker 1: and find evidence for bat like flying mammals. Uh. They
Speaker 1: probably started off in the trees, we think, instead eating
Speaker 1: a little tree creatures, and then they began to really
Speaker 1: go after a key market. Because evolution, of course, is
Speaker 1: always about and I'm going to anthropomorphize evolution a little
Speaker 1: bit here, uh, which I can't help it do, but
Speaker 1: but evolution is all about going after a market, doing
Speaker 1: what's work, what works, and I mean it's just extreme
Speaker 1: business savvy. So you have the bats, right, and what
Speaker 1: is this this vital market that they need to get into.
Speaker 1: They want to eat instincts. They need to eat instincts.
Speaker 1: That's there, that's the thing. But there's a whole period
Speaker 1: of time, a recurring period of time in which the
Speaker 1: markets wide open. It's just right for the picking. They
Speaker 1: just need the right evolutionary adaptations to go after all right.
Speaker 1: So in other words, they show up on the scene
Speaker 1: fifty million years ago and birds already well established and
Speaker 1: they're eating up all of all of the prey, right,
Speaker 1: And so they looked to the night sky and they say, ah,
Speaker 1: I see a smart dishport of insects there. If only
Speaker 1: I could get to them. And essentially this is where
Speaker 1: you begin to see where the bat becomes an extremely
Speaker 1: successful mammal because it is able to then uh, basically
Speaker 1: evolved into flight, which we'll talk about a little bit.
Speaker 1: But also it becomes a nocturnal creature who can hunt
Speaker 1: at night get all of those insects. But also it's
Speaker 1: a it's able to use the cover of night uh
Speaker 1: from other predators, so it doesn't get eaten up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there are nocturnal birds. You have owls
Speaker 1: and and and some other creatures of avian creatures that
Speaker 1: that do their thing at night. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: this was a wide open space. So bats moved into
Speaker 1: it and really they came to own the night. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're certainly preyed on by some creatures, but but
Speaker 1: they're really ruling it out there and have arguably become
Speaker 1: one of one ill of, if not the most successful
Speaker 1: mammals on the planet. Yes, yes, for this very reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can certainly the argument can fall to,
Speaker 1: you know, rat versus bat. You could maybe make an
Speaker 1: argument for domestic cat as well, but that that's a
Speaker 1: slightly different business model. Yeah, and a whole other podcast
Speaker 1: coming up, by the way. Certainly both the bats, both
Speaker 1: the rats and the cats uh a certain amount of
Speaker 1: their success to humans. But but the bats, they're doing
Speaker 1: it all by wings, so so certainly you can give
Speaker 1: the natural bump to them in the contest. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: This is from the Department of Energy. Aska Scientist Mike
Speaker 1: Stewart says that the night is really a win win
Speaker 1: proposition for bats because they are better suited um as
Speaker 1: as a mammal um to the night because they're expending
Speaker 1: so much energy to stay in flight, so the cool
Speaker 1: air would help them to had excess body heat, so
Speaker 1: that's that's a boon to them. And because the night
Speaker 1: air is cooler and has a higher density than the
Speaker 1: hot air during the day, it makes it easier to
Speaker 1: derive lift by flapping wings and cool denser air. And
Speaker 1: again we'll talk about the wings situation in a bit,
Speaker 1: but as we know, bats aren't constructed like birds, so
Speaker 1: they need all the help they can get in the
Speaker 1: lift department. And then echolocation is um is one of
Speaker 1: two main adoptions again here that make bats six such
Speaker 1: successful nocturnal creatures. Yeah, it's worth noting there's no way
Speaker 1: a bat is going to outply a bird. And if
Speaker 1: you've if you've ever watched Atton Borrows the Life of mammals,
Speaker 1: there's there or well now I can't remember if this
Speaker 1: was an episode of the Life of Mammals are the
Speaker 1: Life of Birds but one of those two series, I
Speaker 1: just go watch them both. Uh, you get to see
Speaker 1: this in action as as a mega bats afrigo, which
Speaker 1: kind of fruit that it was? Um, I just have
Speaker 1: a terrible time if they're up against predatory birds during
Speaker 1: the daylight, swoop in and just take them because they're
Speaker 1: they're just a total on a total different level performance wise,
Speaker 1: but at night they're the they're the top player. But
Speaker 1: it's really echo location that makes them this standout mammal right,
Speaker 1: because their ability, this ability that they have evolved makes
Speaker 1: them super successful. Yeah, they can navigate this world of night.
Speaker 1: They can find these often tiny they're a tiny creatures.
Speaker 1: The flitting about out there in the dark is it's
Speaker 1: zero in on them and swoop in for the kill.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do a little brief overview of echo location,
Speaker 1: and again we won't go into it too much because
Speaker 1: we have a podcast devoted entirely to it. It is
Speaker 1: that fascinating. Tom harris um is a House to Works
Speaker 1: writer and he has an excellent how bats work article
Speaker 1: to check that out. But he asked you to imagine
Speaker 1: an Echo canyon when you think about echolocation, and it's
Speaker 1: like a canyon, right that you shout in. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I'm thinking at the Grand Canyon. I don't know, I've
Speaker 1: never actually tried about, but at the Grand Canyon, I
Speaker 1: should say, when you shout, you produce a sound that
Speaker 1: um that makes sound waves, obviously, and that travels across
Speaker 1: the canyon, and then the rock face on the opposite
Speaker 1: side of the canyon deflects the air pressure energy of
Speaker 1: the sound wave so that it begins moving in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction, heading back to you. Okay, So if you're
Speaker 1: in an area where at atmospheric pressure, then air composition
Speaker 1: is constant. Sound waves always move at the same speed.
Speaker 1: And if you knew the speed of sound in the area,
Speaker 1: and you had a very precise stop watch, for instance,
Speaker 1: you could use sound to determine the disness across the canyon.
Speaker 1: And he says this is the basic principle of echolocation.
Speaker 1: Bats are making sounds the same way that we do,
Speaker 1: by moving air past their vibrating vocal cords. In some
Speaker 1: bats emit the sounds from their mouth, which they hold
Speaker 1: open as they fly, and others emit sounds through their nose.
Speaker 1: So yes, the basic principle of radar and sonar, I'm
Speaker 1: sending out these waves that they're bouncing off something. And uh.
Speaker 1: In sonar and radar you have either you know, a
Speaker 1: guy sitting there with a stopwatch or more likely a
Speaker 1: machine that's interpreting that data and letting know what distance
Speaker 1: has been traversed with the bat. Of course, it's all
Speaker 1: taking place in the brain. Yeah, something that we couldn't
Speaker 1: never do right of this different data coming back at them,
Speaker 1: and it puts us back in the nagle area of
Speaker 1: how how do we even imagine that we we can't right? Right,
Speaker 1: because that that is something that is specific to them
Speaker 1: and in second nature of course, and the way that
Speaker 1: they can sit there in abstract um about this data
Speaker 1: that's coming in. All right, so let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: But when we get back we will talk about these
Speaker 1: finger like bones in the bats wings that are so
Speaker 1: wonderful and creepy and important to their ability to apply.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back, and yeah, we're about to take
Speaker 1: wing with the bat. And if you look at the
Speaker 1: any skeletal layout of the bat, and and there's one
Speaker 1: with on our housetu works how bats work article, you'll
Speaker 1: see that it really it's not a situation and of
Speaker 1: and this is something that we kind of get gets
Speaker 1: complicated with all of our visions of like bat like
Speaker 1: wings and imagining creatures and dragons, you tend to see
Speaker 1: a creature that has more like batman, you know, where
Speaker 1: he has like more like a flying squirrel, where he
Speaker 1: just has a bunch of webbing under his arms. But
Speaker 1: most of what you're seeing with the bat's wings, those
Speaker 1: are fingers, So that's it's a it's a hand that
Speaker 1: has become wing. Yeah, and if you look at the
Speaker 1: skeletal system, you will see what looks to be like
Speaker 1: arms on on the wing stretched out on either side,
Speaker 1: and then five fingers draping from that um. And it's
Speaker 1: just it's amazing because what it's doing is it's creating
Speaker 1: sort of like these spokes, just like the spokes for
Speaker 1: an umbrella in terms of giving it structure but also mobility. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you have this webbing in between that of
Speaker 1: course becomes the wing surface and uh, and that material
Speaker 1: also has a it's really really remarkable, and it has
Speaker 1: a heels really swiftly as it would need to do
Speaker 1: because if you get that that stuff gets tord worn
Speaker 1: or or or bitten or clawed at in any way,
Speaker 1: they need that to heal up pronto so that they
Speaker 1: can fly again. Yeah, And that webbing, that elastic skin
Speaker 1: stretches from the edge of the forelimb all the way
Speaker 1: to the tip of an elongated little finger, and then
Speaker 1: the wing attaches to the lateral side of the body
Speaker 1: and lower limb down the ankle. And some bats also
Speaker 1: have a membrane between their legs connecting to the tail,
Speaker 1: and this hind leg wing integration is very different from
Speaker 1: a bird obviously, and as we have mentioned, it's a
Speaker 1: treat that's shared with gliders. So if we look at
Speaker 1: the evolutionary flow of this, we can easily imagine a
Speaker 1: creature in the distant past. It eats insects, It calls
Speaker 1: up trees to eat insects. Eventually it takes two gliding
Speaker 1: uh to catch more insects, and over time that evolves
Speaker 1: into a full blown sense of flight, ability to fly
Speaker 1: and catch things in the night. Yeah. Because really, what
Speaker 1: you're looking at when you're looking at that, when you
Speaker 1: see that it is a modified mammalian limb um. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about something called the rogue finger gene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is pretty pretty crazy. Uh. You know, the more
Speaker 1: we've learned about the about genetics, we get to where
Speaker 1: we can pinpoint individual genes that that you've you've present,
Speaker 1: you've on can can cause remarkable changes in physiology. And
Speaker 1: there's actually a study from Colorado Health Sciences Center in
Speaker 1: Denver and they pinpointed the single gene that allows bats
Speaker 1: to grow wings and fly, and it's called b MP
Speaker 1: two and it's one of a family of genes that
Speaker 1: are important for limb development in mammals. So you find
Speaker 1: it in bats, but you don't find it in mice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's really cool because it does get this sort
Speaker 1: of pinpoint how that's evolved because the problem here is
Speaker 1: that we have um a bit of a gap in
Speaker 1: the fossil record, right, so we don't necessarily know what
Speaker 1: what sort of in between animal I guess you could
Speaker 1: say that's truly evolved from. But knowing this, we can
Speaker 1: we can point to the fact that um that bats
Speaker 1: did have this gene or or they do have this
Speaker 1: gene and it allowed that elongation of these finger bones,
Speaker 1: which was really important in creating a wing with a
Speaker 1: high aspect ratio. Meaning that all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: longer you know your UM, these fingers get and the
Speaker 1: more membrane than, the easier it is to get lift
Speaker 1: and to take off as a creature. So so important
Speaker 1: because remember bats are the only group of mammals to
Speaker 1: have evolved power powered flight, So this is a really
Speaker 1: important aspect of it. And in fact, to get a
Speaker 1: real good sense of of how this gene has affected
Speaker 1: the growth of this UM bat's limbs, if you do
Speaker 1: look at a skeletal system of them, what becomes apparent
Speaker 1: UM is that it's so exaggerated, these these four limbs
Speaker 1: that it sort of looks like Edward scissor hands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so imagine that, and then also know that scientists have
Speaker 1: tinkered with some mice to mess with this gene to
Speaker 1: see if they if they reduced it, if they took
Speaker 1: it out of the sequence, what would happen. And they
Speaker 1: did find that UM with with mice that they could
Speaker 1: get something like a six percent increase in limbs when
Speaker 1: they tinkered with it. The reason they use mice is
Speaker 1: because again if you look at a mouse, very similar
Speaker 1: to the physiology, the basic physiology of course UM then
Speaker 1: as with a bat and so when they began to
Speaker 1: see that increase, they said, Wow, that doesn't seem like much.
Speaker 1: But if you had a six increase in the limbs
Speaker 1: of a human, they would grow something like four inches.
Speaker 1: We've got to figure out how to pump this into
Speaker 1: basketball players, I know, right right. So again, powered flight
Speaker 1: bat's not as good as this as birds. Powered flight
Speaker 1: involves a tremendous amount of energy. Um. I mean, the
Speaker 1: case can be made that it's really not an energy
Speaker 1: efficient means of flight, but it's the only thing that
Speaker 1: the nature can really achieve on this planet anyway. So
Speaker 1: it's it's worth noting that that on the whole birds
Speaker 1: versus bats thing. You will watch any bird. Most birds anyway,
Speaker 1: don't have any real problem taking off from the ground. Um.
Speaker 1: It's more of a struggle for some than for others,
Speaker 1: so some have to really get kind of a running
Speaker 1: start at it. But most of the birds that you
Speaker 1: canna see around your backyard, they can just take right off.
Speaker 1: Not so with the bat, which is why why you
Speaker 1: if you go to a bat cave, or if you
Speaker 1: or even just say, I say a tree where you'll
Speaker 1: find fruit brats, bats roosting, or the top of a
Speaker 1: bungalow in Mexico. They're they're hanging up there right, and
Speaker 1: they're they're part of the advantage here. There are a
Speaker 1: number of advantages to to roosting in this this position,
Speaker 1: but one of them is that they can drop right
Speaker 1: down into flight. There they just use gravity to achieve
Speaker 1: to achieve that initial boost of lift, as opposed to
Speaker 1: having to painstakingly flap their wings and get nowhere on
Speaker 1: the ground or even try sort of a running lift
Speaker 1: because they have such short time legs that they can't
Speaker 1: even do that. Yeah, it always reminds me of there
Speaker 1: was a plane back in Uh. There was an experimental
Speaker 1: aircraft back in called the x F A five Goblin. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of you airplane buffs might be familiar with it.
Speaker 1: And it was a stubby little plane. And the idea
Speaker 1: that it was a parasitic fighter that it would you
Speaker 1: would stow this in the belly of a bomber and
Speaker 1: then a bomber on a long bombing run. It could
Speaker 1: there's attacked by fighter planes, they could deploy this guy
Speaker 1: to go out and deal with the problem. And uh,
Speaker 1: and it was sort of launched in a similar way.
Speaker 1: They would kind of hang it down from the from
Speaker 1: from from the Bombay and then just let it drop
Speaker 1: and then it with a cheap flight. Yeah. See, I
Speaker 1: mean it's Do you think they took that example from nature?
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know that, I mean, in a
Speaker 1: sense they did. I mean it's the same some of
Speaker 1: the same physics. Yeah, just like sonar is taken from
Speaker 1: from basically a location. All right, let's talk about how
Speaker 1: these guys feed. And we had mentioned the vampire bat,
Speaker 1: but I did want to point out that most of
Speaker 1: the bats are insectivores, and meaning that they eat insects
Speaker 1: and the brown bat, which is indigenous for North America,
Speaker 1: and catch and eat as many as twelve hundred mosquitoes
Speaker 1: in one hour exactly. That's why I wanted these guys
Speaker 1: living in my backyard. I get it, right, I know.
Speaker 1: And it's particularly in conditions like we've had here in
Speaker 1: the South, where there's just I mean to spend mosquito
Speaker 1: crazy it's been. They've been so excited. Um, this is
Speaker 1: really important to the ecosystem and of course to my legs,
Speaker 1: um not becoming devoured. But I do want to mention
Speaker 1: too that there is brack and cave in Texas and
Speaker 1: that contains more than twenty million fats. Imagine the amount
Speaker 1: of I guana in that one and uh, they eat
Speaker 1: about two hundred tons of insects every night. Nice, imagine
Speaker 1: without those guys doing their job, everything we just get
Speaker 1: out of whack fast. But not everyone eats insects. Again,
Speaker 1: you have the vampire bad which is is the only
Speaker 1: mammal that lives exclusively on blood. And uh and typically
Speaker 1: these things gathering colonies about a hundred animals sometimes and
Speaker 1: loving groups of a thousand or war and uh they
Speaker 1: say that in one year, uh, a one strong bat
Speaker 1: colony can drink the blood of twenty five cows. And now, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're not tapping the cows out here. I mean
Speaker 1: that they drink them a little bit of their blood. Right.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of like it's almost well not really
Speaker 1: a parasitic relationship, but there they can serve the cows.
Speaker 1: They are in a way, they're milking the cow, and
Speaker 1: they want that cow to be there tomorrow and the
Speaker 1: next night and the next time when they come back
Speaker 1: for more and more blood. But what's the one thing
Speaker 1: that I was really surprised by because I guess I
Speaker 1: you know, I knew about vampire bats. I've always known
Speaker 1: about vampire bats, but they didn't really know all the
Speaker 1: hard facts about them, like, for instance, that vampire bats
Speaker 1: strike their victim from the ground, which is which is
Speaker 1: something you in the movies. You see like vampire bats
Speaker 1: are swooping around the heroine's head and she's screaming, right,
Speaker 1: But the tactic is a bit different. The idea is
Speaker 1: to land in near the prey and then creep up
Speaker 1: to it on all fours and with that kind of
Speaker 1: awkward back crawl um that batman never seems to really use.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, he's all into humulating the bat, but
Speaker 1: he doesn't really do though. Yeah so um yeah, So
Speaker 1: the bat hash is crawling up to the cow, and
Speaker 1: then the bat will use a heat sense a run
Speaker 1: its nose that points it towards the spot with the
Speaker 1: warm blood is flowing just beneath the skin. And then
Speaker 1: it will leap up and it will use its um
Speaker 1: it's sharp little razor teeth to open up a little
Speaker 1: tap if you will, and then uh, it's will begin
Speaker 1: lapping at the blood and it's saliva provents the blood
Speaker 1: from clotting while it's feeding. It actually has a specialized
Speaker 1: tongue to lap up the blood as well. It's it's
Speaker 1: got little rivulets in it. Nice. Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: It's found in Mexico, Central America, and South America. And
Speaker 1: then you also another important thing. Not only are bats
Speaker 1: doing us a huge service in curving insect populations, but
Speaker 1: they're also in some areas major pollinators. Uh. Their bats
Speaker 1: that drink nectar and UH. And they're important pollinators of
Speaker 1: say the organ pipe cactus UH in the United States. UH.
Speaker 1: They're also pollinators of really important cash crops like mango, cashew, balsa, agata,
Speaker 1: bananas very important. And in some cases you actually have
Speaker 1: bats that are the primary pollinators of a of a
Speaker 1: of the plant. So it's a it's just a one
Speaker 1: to one relationship between these two guys. If one goes
Speaker 1: and the other one is in serious trouble. And some
Speaker 1: of these guys are crazy too, because they have like
Speaker 1: extra long tongues basically like a like the probiscus of
Speaker 1: a of a butterfly used to get nectar from a
Speaker 1: particular flower. UM. Sue Bernard, she is a lead keeper
Speaker 1: at Zoo Atlanta, has said that UM that they also
Speaker 1: are responsible for up to eight of reforestation because of
Speaker 1: the seed droppings um from from the fruit that they eat.
Speaker 1: You try the fruit eaters, they're they're the whole relationship
Speaker 1: here is I give you some some delicious fruit because
Speaker 1: some seeds in it. If you could poop that some
Speaker 1: were to grow, that would be great. And the bats like, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure I can do that, yeah yeah um. And she
Speaker 1: also said that in terms of um pollinating, that between
Speaker 1: two and three hundred products and grocery stores are bat derived,
Speaker 1: and some of those especially, Yeah, you have to look.
Speaker 1: It's that it's there under chicken, beef, seafood product, cattle
Speaker 1: by product, and eventually bat exactly. But peaches, plums, pears
Speaker 1: would we wouldn't have them without bats. And speaking of
Speaker 1: the amount of fruits that they ingest, I think this
Speaker 1: is really interesting. Um. Every once in a while they
Speaker 1: will come upon, you know, the green parts of tomato
Speaker 1: that you've seen before, or the green parts on a fruit,
Speaker 1: and this is not a good thing. It's a secondary
Speaker 1: plant compound. Yeah, especially bad for light taking. Bat mother's
Speaker 1: yeah and pregnant that yeah, I can actually affect that
Speaker 1: the development of the fetus. Um. So what happens is
Speaker 1: that these female bats because they have consumed some of
Speaker 1: these plant compounds secondary plant compounds. They will compensate the
Speaker 1: toxicity of these compounds by eating mineral rich clay or water.
Speaker 1: And according to Dr Christine Voit, local people in Africa
Speaker 1: and South America um also some parts of Africa are
Speaker 1: familiar with the detoxic detoxifying qualities of mineral rich clay
Speaker 1: and consume it during pregnancy and lactation. Yeah, you see
Speaker 1: this in in in many animals. Really, if there there's
Speaker 1: an animal that is it is eating something and have
Speaker 1: some sort of toxic effects, you know, they can't just
Speaker 1: turn to have a little tongues. They have to scark
Speaker 1: down some clay or some some sort of dirt to
Speaker 1: deal with it. Yeah, or hang around salt licks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's dive into the back colony. We've
Speaker 1: already talked about the roosting a little bit like they
Speaker 1: the flight advantages of it, but of course there are
Speaker 1: other advantages to living on the roof of a cave
Speaker 1: as well. For starters. What else lives on the roof
Speaker 1: of a cave, right, Insects? Well, insects, but in terms
Speaker 1: so yeah, there there may be food up there, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, it's a safe place to hide out.
Speaker 1: Now the bottom of the cave underneath where the bats
Speaker 1: are living, because that's a different story. You can have
Speaker 1: some baby bat falls down there and injured, or old
Speaker 1: bat plummets to the bottom of the cave. There's no
Speaker 1: telling how many things will be ready to eat it up. Um.
Speaker 1: You'll have their their insects that can do this job.
Speaker 1: You'll have surface animals that wander down for these eating
Speaker 1: meals like skunks. Um. Again, it was I think it
Speaker 1: was a Planet Earth War Life of Mammals. One of
Speaker 1: the Miniattinborough Discovery Channel BBC CO Productions has a gem
Speaker 1: sequence where you see these awful skunks going down there
Speaker 1: to eat baby bats. I do recall and in one
Speaker 1: of the episodes, um that I think it was where
Speaker 1: there were three million bats and this was in a
Speaker 1: cave in Borneo with the giant Guando mountain. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: Guando Molton because then that of course is going that
Speaker 1: Guano mountain is feeding cockroaches primarily, but then cockroach has
Speaker 1: become another food, so ors and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: It becomes this whole yeah, cave ecosystem that is dependent
Speaker 1: upon the bat colony, which is which is fascinating. That's
Speaker 1: that's the whole podcast in he spent an entire month
Speaker 1: filming in that yeah cave, waiting through the go No,
Speaker 1: I mean literally waiting through it. But yeah, let's talk
Speaker 1: about these colonies a little bit. Uh. It is, of
Speaker 1: course a very great place for bats to stay. It's cold,
Speaker 1: dark conditions. It's ideal for me maintaining their body temperatures
Speaker 1: during sleep or what we call sleep, which is really
Speaker 1: torpor hibernation. And the potabtles them slows down and maybe
Speaker 1: I found that rabies. If that has rabies, it'll act
Speaker 1: slower on them during this that's right, yeah, yeah, um.
Speaker 1: And it also provides cover from predators, as you pointed out,
Speaker 1: and it is an ideal gathering spot for socializing, including mating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I should point out real quick. Just one more note
Speaker 1: about hanging upside down in the bat cave. If you
Speaker 1: or I were to do it, we wouldn't last that
Speaker 1: long because it would be tremendously painful for muscle would
Speaker 1: just have a time with that, and I'd fall and
Speaker 1: a skunk with eating the order. But the cool thing
Speaker 1: about the bats is that gravity keeps their talents closed
Speaker 1: instead of a contracted muscle, So the bat doesn't actually
Speaker 1: have to exert any effort to hang like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Once they basically clicked together their talents, that just they
Speaker 1: just hang right there and they, as you say, they
Speaker 1: don't have to use any muscle energy to keep them shut. Um.
Speaker 1: And it was reading though that when they want to
Speaker 1: come out of it, then they do have to obviously
Speaker 1: activate their muscles in order to try to get them
Speaker 1: pride open again. Yeah. So it's the exact opposite of
Speaker 1: me hanging from the roof of a cave. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: unless you grow very large talents. Um. Okay. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about specialization because I think this is really interesting.
Speaker 1: The National Environment Research Console reports that bats build long
Speaker 1: term companionship with other individuals and these companions are members
Speaker 1: of exclusive social groups that can last for many years.
Speaker 1: And the this was from Tom August from the Center
Speaker 1: for Ecology and Hydrology, and he actually built up a
Speaker 1: spider web diagram to reveal bats social networks. And even
Speaker 1: though bats change where they sleep in the cave every
Speaker 1: few days, what he found is that they cluster with
Speaker 1: the same bats and that groups appear to be made
Speaker 1: up of twenty to forty. Individuals and researchers have also
Speaker 1: witnessed territorial disputes as well as altruistic acts like bringing
Speaker 1: food to sick of that friends we can't hunt for themselves,
Speaker 1: and that bats can also use the characteristics of other
Speaker 1: bats voices to recognize each other. Um This is according
Speaker 1: to a study by researchers from the University of to Bingjin,
Speaker 1: Germany and the University of Applied Sciences in Constants, Germany.
Speaker 1: And The researchers first tested the ability of four greater
Speaker 1: mass eared bats distinguished between the echolocation calls of other bats,
Speaker 1: and after observing that the bats learned to discriminate the
Speaker 1: voices of other bats, they then programmed a computer model
Speaker 1: that produces the recognition behavior of the bats, and analysis
Speaker 1: of the model suggest that the spectral energy distribution and
Speaker 1: the signals contain individual specific information that allows bats to
Speaker 1: recognize each other, which I think it's pretty fascinating. So
Speaker 1: inside the cave you have this tremendous sense of community.
Speaker 1: Everybody's hanging out literally, and then when the sun goes down,
Speaker 1: everybody exits the cave and what does it look like.
Speaker 1: It is amazing because it is three million bats exiting
Speaker 1: right in which you can take a while. Um, it
Speaker 1: can actually take up to three hours. And the bats
Speaker 1: form a swirling donut shaped figure that looks like a superorganism.
Speaker 1: And that's so predators are confused. Although if if you yes,
Speaker 1: exactly and they that's why you kind of see them
Speaker 1: darting about in changing direction. And that's what's so amazing
Speaker 1: about how that donut ship continues to scirreluc Again, there
Speaker 1: are birds, predatory birds, the hawks, etcetera, that love to
Speaker 1: have themselves a little bat for dinner. Yeah, yeah, Actually, um,
Speaker 1: you know that doesn't really work on birds of prey
Speaker 1: like falcons because I can still just pluck them out
Speaker 1: of the air with these, but um, I do think
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Bat biologist Nuclear lay feast Off of u
Speaker 1: n C Center for Design, Innovation and Winston and Winston
Speaker 1: Singalem State University says that when filming a bat exodus,
Speaker 1: it's just it's a quite an experience because you say
Speaker 1: that you can feel the wind from thousands of wind
Speaker 1: queens batting. If you happen to stand up in the
Speaker 1: wrong um area, you will get hit by bats. Obviously
Speaker 1: they don't care. Um, that that many bats exiting just
Speaker 1: changes to the quality of light in that area. The
Speaker 1: light dims, the light dims, and he said, smells atrocious.
Speaker 1: That you will get background on you, you will get urine.
Speaker 1: It is. It is a very dramatic exit. All right,
Speaker 1: we're in the home stretch now, and it's worth noting
Speaker 1: that again, there's so many different species of bats out there,
Speaker 1: and and some of them have really evolved some some
Speaker 1: some very interesting ways of getting about. Uh. For instance,
Speaker 1: you do have bats that swim. In fact, the facts
Speaker 1: are still being generated on this, but it looks like
Speaker 1: a lot of varieties of bats can swim if they
Speaker 1: have to um, if they're under stress, if it's obviously
Speaker 1: if it's a situation of of life or death. You
Speaker 1: have bats of course that that feed up off of fish,
Speaker 1: like the ones I observed in in Costa Rica. Occasionally
Speaker 1: bats like that will wind up in the water and
Speaker 1: they're gonna need to swim for it. Whether or not
Speaker 1: they can actually outswim the things that are waiting for
Speaker 1: bats to fall in the water, that's kind of a
Speaker 1: to nature to decide. But but but we have observed
Speaker 1: bats swimming even underwater in those situations, and you had
Speaker 1: mentioned about that, you guys saw that's the greater bulldog
Speaker 1: that and um that it actually uses echolocation to pinpoint
Speaker 1: the ripples in the water, will say like a minnow's
Speaker 1: fin has has um gone through it, and it either
Speaker 1: dives in head first or it will trawl the surface
Speaker 1: of the water with its talents. And then of course
Speaker 1: we mentioned the vampire bats that land near the cow
Speaker 1: or these sleeping human and and then then creep in
Speaker 1: for the kill, which their sexy back crawl. But but
Speaker 1: but it's not alone. There's also the New Zealand short
Speaker 1: tailed bat. And this guy is really interesting because you've
Speaker 1: evolved in New Zealand, which until the arrival of humans,
Speaker 1: there were no native mammals other than bats, so so
Speaker 1: he had a free for all pretty much. So he
Speaker 1: actually you and I don't know what I'm calling me.
Speaker 1: He I should come. She her as she she evolved
Speaker 1: so that she could actually move around more in the ground,
Speaker 1: feeding onto restaural invertebrates as well as flying. So so
Speaker 1: this particular species of bat is actually rather adapt at
Speaker 1: using a second location in the air for prey, but
Speaker 1: also using a sense of smell to hunt on the ground.
Speaker 1: I found that pretty pretty crazy. And now I've seen
Speaker 1: some footage of these guys, it's really cool. They're just scampering. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I mentioned earlier, I mentioned the wrinkly face
Speaker 1: bat who has the awesome name of Centurio Cynics and
Speaker 1: uh and I believe this is the one on our
Speaker 1: Facebook page stuff to blow your mind. A few weeks back,
Speaker 1: I posted one of these old illustrations German illustrations, scientific
Speaker 1: illustrations to the various bat faces. Yeah, and the one
Speaker 1: that's because you get to see all this just amazing diversification.
Speaker 1: And there's like one super round wrinkly bat face that
Speaker 1: it's a face that looks like a wax seal on
Speaker 1: a on an envelope, you know, like an old timey
Speaker 1: wax seal, like that kind of face. And the really
Speaker 1: interesting thing about this guy is that they've they've conducted
Speaker 1: studies into his an oddly faced, oddly shaped skull, because
Speaker 1: it turns out he has a really powerful job and
Speaker 1: like more powerful than than carnivorous bats. And this is
Speaker 1: a bat that eats fruit. So it's been kind of
Speaker 1: a puzzle for scientists, like why why has he got
Speaker 1: this super powerful jaw. If he's just dining on soft fruits,
Speaker 1: he's not even getting like hard fruits. So the theory
Speaker 1: is that, of course he hasn't always depended upon soft fruits.
Speaker 1: That that he's and and that's why he's retained this
Speaker 1: ability to to chew on harder uh materials. Isn't the
Speaker 1: job of something like uh, it's stronger than other bat jaws. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. Yeah, he's a little guy too, and the
Speaker 1: face is really amazing. Yeah. And of course we are
Speaker 1: still finding new species of bats, which I think is amazing.
Speaker 1: Like just this month September two thousand twelve, in Eastern Africa,
Speaker 1: they discovered four new species of bats. So we're just
Speaker 1: continually continuing to add to our understanding of how bats work,
Speaker 1: as well as our understanding of how many bats we have.
Speaker 1: It's really amazing stuff when you consider the sort of
Speaker 1: tricks that they have up their sleeve. Um. And again
Speaker 1: we'll talk about echo location in the next podcast. But
Speaker 1: the more that we can learn about these these creatures,
Speaker 1: I think the better off we could become, even if
Speaker 1: we can't fully understand or inhabit their mind. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna I'm gonna leave you in just a
Speaker 1: couple of notes. We're gonna we're gonna skip the listener
Speaker 1: mail since I think we've gone a bit long here.
Speaker 1: But a little bit of outside reading here. Check out
Speaker 1: a book called after man Cohen, A Zoology of the
Speaker 1: Future by Dougal Dixon. It's actually the work of a geologist,
Speaker 1: um and author, but he uh it's like a crazy,
Speaker 1: awesomely illustrated book that is uh sort of imagining what
Speaker 1: life on Earth now might evolve into in the future.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole section like he clearly loved bats
Speaker 1: and loved the ideas of of of an animal evolving
Speaker 1: for flight and then re adapting to new situations, certainly
Speaker 1: like a winged baton New in New Zealand that also
Speaker 1: is running around the ground, that kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: there's a whole island, uh fictional island he creates an
Speaker 1: it called the the Islands of Batavia. Oh yeah, And
Speaker 1: so he imagines all of these crazy different bats, bats
Speaker 1: that live exclusively on the ground, bats that live in
Speaker 1: the trees more like you know, sort of like getting
Speaker 1: back to their roots, and including an extra large night
Speaker 1: stalker bat called the man Ambulus para horridas and uh,
Speaker 1: it's about in his imagining, it's about a one and
Speaker 1: a half meters tall in Rome screeching and screaming through
Speaker 1: the Batavian forest at night impacts. Um. There are also
Speaker 1: other illustrations of their animals, right, Like I recall seeing
Speaker 1: a bird that was mimicking a flower and it was
Speaker 1: beautifully illustrated, and it's it's got its mouth open and
Speaker 1: the tongue looks like a steam in and of course
Speaker 1: it's attracting bats. But yeah, it's crazy stuff. It's it's
Speaker 1: as imaginative as anything you'll see and like, uh, like
Speaker 1: Avatar or what have you. And then also check out
Speaker 1: a blog post that I did a few weeks back
Speaker 1: and I'll link to it again in the in the
Speaker 1: blog posted the companies this episode, but was called Jim
Speaker 1: Trainers Animated Worlds of Bats, world of Bats and Dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: Jim Trainers a Chicago based illustrator, illustrator and animator who
Speaker 1: did a short film called the Bats. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: it's really it's it's really cute, but in a way
Speaker 1: that keeps an eye on what animals really are, which
Speaker 1: I find really and really cool and really uh enlightening. UH.
Speaker 1: For instance, there's a scene, my favorite quote from it
Speaker 1: the bats and narrating and the bats talking about its
Speaker 1: life in the cave and uh, and the bat says,
Speaker 1: one morning, I echoed an enormous worm. I cried because
Speaker 1: I could not eat him all at once. God appeared
Speaker 1: to me and she said, sometimes you have to kill
Speaker 1: more than you can eat, which I love because we're
Speaker 1: because trainer is h He's he's anthemomorphizing the bat to
Speaker 1: an extent, but he's also keeping an eye on all
Speaker 1: the the animal qualities that that make up this creature
Speaker 1: and make it so unique and so perplexing and ultimately
Speaker 1: so alien to USDN. That was just lovely. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: if you have some tidbits on bats, you would like
Speaker 1: to share with us your encounters with bats, be they frightening,
Speaker 1: be they inspiring, share them with us. We would love
Speaker 1: to hear about it. You can find us on Facebook
Speaker 1: and tumbler. We are stuff to blow your mind on
Speaker 1: both of those and on Twitter we go by the
Speaker 1: handle blow the Mind, and you can also drop us
Speaker 1: a line at blow the Mind at Discovery dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: It how stuff works dot com,