Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today We've got a very special
Speaker 1: show for you because I've got a real life bat
Speaker 1: expert that is a human expert on bats and not
Speaker 1: a bat, who's an expert to talk about some wonderful
Speaker 1: bat news. The Hill's Horseshoe bat Rhino Loafus hill I
Speaker 1: has been feared extinct as neither hair nor wing has
Speaker 1: been seen for forty years. They exist only in Rwanda
Speaker 1: and were critically endangered, so their disappearing act was of
Speaker 1: great concern. But after a five year period of survey efforts,
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, Bat Conservation International and the Rwanda Wildlife
Speaker 1: Conservation Association spotted a bat with an incredibly strange looking face,
Speaker 1: one suspiciously like the disappeared Hills's Horseshoe bat, and after
Speaker 1: comparing it to museum samples, it was confirmed the bat
Speaker 1: that was feared gone forever is still out there. So
Speaker 1: joining me today to discuss this discovery, to talk about
Speaker 1: who is this little bat and why it's so important,
Speaker 1: and to answer some of your questions about bats. Is
Speaker 1: Dr Winifred Frick, chief scientist of Bat Conservation International. Welcome,
Speaker 1: Dr Frick, thank you so much for joining me. Oh
Speaker 1: my pleasure. I'm delighted to be here. So I am
Speaker 1: so excited. This is such wonderful news. We seem to
Speaker 1: hear all the time about animals who are endangered or
Speaker 1: going extinct, and it's so lovely to hear about an
Speaker 1: animal that has been rediscovered. Absolutely, and it was so
Speaker 1: incredible to be part of that rediscovery for for exactly
Speaker 1: that reason, to know that the species is still on
Speaker 1: the planet, living out its best life in the forests
Speaker 1: of Rwanda. It's best weird faced life. So yeah, let's
Speaker 1: get to know the subject of the discovery. The hills
Speaker 1: is horseshoe bats. So the hills is horseshoe bat. Like
Speaker 1: many horseshoe bats, is really striking looking. Its face looks
Speaker 1: kind of like an mc escher painting or like an orchid.
Speaker 1: Why why does it look like it has a furry
Speaker 1: orchid face? And can you give a little bit of
Speaker 1: a physical description of this bat? Sure, the horseshoe bats
Speaker 1: have this unusual flap of skin on their faces. It's
Speaker 1: really evolution of their their nose and so they and
Speaker 1: they have different sort of complicated sort of folds and wrinkles,
Speaker 1: and so one of the ways that you identify different
Speaker 1: horseshoe bats is by looking at the sort of the
Speaker 1: shape and size of some of these different sort of
Speaker 1: folds and flaps. So all horseshoe bats have a unique face.
Speaker 1: And Hill's horseshoe bat, some of those facial features are
Speaker 1: really exaggerated, and so they're just I described it as comical. Um,
Speaker 1: they really do, um look pretty funny, but it's it's
Speaker 1: all part of their ability to use echolocation for um,
Speaker 1: looking for insects out of the night sky. That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: So how do those folds help enhance their echolocation? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, they're using sound at night, so they're emitting
Speaker 1: high frequency sounds and and so they are and then
Speaker 1: listening for the echoes back. And horseshoe bats are what
Speaker 1: we call a constant frequency bats, so they're putting out
Speaker 1: a single pulse at a at a constant frequency and
Speaker 1: then listening for the echoes and actually use Doppler shift
Speaker 1: to be able to do that. And so yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't really say exactly how all of the different integral
Speaker 1: features of their faces help them do that, because I
Speaker 1: personally have a hard time imagining what the sensory world
Speaker 1: of a bat would really be like using sound to
Speaker 1: perceive its environment. But I imagine that they have a
Speaker 1: very rich ability to uh to perceive their environment that
Speaker 1: is quite different than ours. And you know, there's this
Speaker 1: whole myth about that's being blind and um, far from it,
Speaker 1: that's actually can see fairly fairly well as well. But
Speaker 1: then they have this whole other amazing sensory adaptation using sound.
Speaker 1: So it's you know, no no surprise that their their
Speaker 1: faces and their features would look different and be highly
Speaker 1: specialized for the way that they're experiencing their environment. That's
Speaker 1: so interesting to me that they, yeah, that they perceive
Speaker 1: the world not just visually but through sound, and somehow
Speaker 1: inside their brain they are creating a map of their
Speaker 1: surroundings with the sound. It's it's so hard to think
Speaker 1: about what it would be like. They have these you know,
Speaker 1: large ears that are like really sensitive to be able
Speaker 1: to you know, hear the echoes back, and if you
Speaker 1: think about the fact that they're emitting really loud pulses
Speaker 1: of sounds so that they could bounce back and then
Speaker 1: determine where um the objects are that the sounds bouncing
Speaker 1: back from. They have really sensitive hearing, and yet they're
Speaker 1: emitting really loud sounds too, so they also have some
Speaker 1: really neat adaptations. This is bats echolocating bats in general,
Speaker 1: not just tells horseshoe bat, of having really rapid acting
Speaker 1: muscles in their earbones that can dislocate at the moment
Speaker 1: that they emit sound and then instantly come back um
Speaker 1: in place so that they can listen for that. So
Speaker 1: there's just so much that's special about the anatomy and
Speaker 1: morphology of these animals that is so cool. So they
Speaker 1: can mute their ears so they don't have to listen
Speaker 1: to their own sound as they're emitting it, but then
Speaker 1: turn it back on when they need to perceive that sounds.
Speaker 1: I wish I had that skill because as as a podcasters,
Speaker 1: someone who has to edit my audio and listen to
Speaker 1: my own voice, it's it's torture. So I yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've read it conscribed as the fastest acting mammalian muscle,
Speaker 1: So remember where I read that. But that's one of
Speaker 1: my one of my favorite go to guiz facts. About bats.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. I didn't know that and that is really fascinating.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that bat sound, your team also captured the
Speaker 1: first recording of the Hills Horseshoe bat and so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna play that right now. So it sounds to me
Speaker 1: it sounds like someone playing like a penny whistle. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a very it's a very sweet sound, very
Speaker 1: cute sound. Well, and I should clarify too, So that's
Speaker 1: their echolocation polls, but slowed way down interesting for hear it.
Speaker 1: So when the bat is out foraging in the forest, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's echocating around thirty killer hurt, so well above
Speaker 1: the normal range of human hearing um, so we wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to hear it at all. It'd be totally
Speaker 1: silent to us. And then interestingly, when my colleague Dr
Speaker 1: John Flanders first slowed it down to play the clip,
Speaker 1: he sent it to me all excited and I couldn't
Speaker 1: hear it, and I said, there's a problem with the file,
Speaker 1: And it turns out that he just hadn't slowed it
Speaker 1: down enough for my ears right. Actually, hear much above
Speaker 1: ten killer hurts, where some people can hear up as
Speaker 1: high as fifteen and or even twenty, and so he
Speaker 1: just slowed down even further so that that I'd be
Speaker 1: able to hear it. Yeah, there are certain frequencies that
Speaker 1: only younger ears can hear. So if you're if you're
Speaker 1: like a kid and you want to, uh pull a
Speaker 1: prank on your parents, sometimes you can play a sound
Speaker 1: that kids can hear and adults can't hear. I've probably
Speaker 1: been to too many concerts to be able to here
Speaker 1: that that bat sound as well. So but yeah, so
Speaker 1: that is that's really interesting. So what do we really
Speaker 1: know about the Hills horseshoe bats behavior because we haven't
Speaker 1: seen them in forty years? Are they pretty reclusive and
Speaker 1: hard to know much about or have we learned anything
Speaker 1: about them? Yeah, well there's still lots to learn what
Speaker 1: we know. So there's only been two individuals prior to
Speaker 1: our expedition in January. There's only ever been two individuals described,
Speaker 1: one in nineteen sixty four and another one and um.
Speaker 1: Both of those individuals were observed in the Uinka region
Speaker 1: of Nyangue National Park, which is in southwestern Rwanda and
Speaker 1: only eight kilometers apart. And and that's exactly the same
Speaker 1: spot where we found actually captured two individuals on that trip.
Speaker 1: So from best we can tell, this is a very
Speaker 1: rare um ecs with a very small geographic range that's
Speaker 1: in the very heart of Niangua National Park, basically essentially
Speaker 1: in one watershed, and so whether they had a larger
Speaker 1: range historically, you know, unfortunately Rwanda has experienced a high
Speaker 1: rate of deforestation, especially in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: Nianguai National Park now is protected by Rwanda and is
Speaker 1: really one of the sort of crown jewels of conservation
Speaker 1: and in protection in Rwanda, which takes its conservation and
Speaker 1: its wildlife species protections very seriously. But you know, it
Speaker 1: seems like this, I mean, this is a Rwanda is
Speaker 1: called the Land of a Thousand Hills and it's in
Speaker 1: this Albertine Rift area of central Africa. So the forest
Speaker 1: there is really old, meaning that this part of the
Speaker 1: planet has had this kind of forest for a very
Speaker 1: long time, like it didn't experience a change in habitat
Speaker 1: at during glacial periods and things. And so what you
Speaker 1: find in those kinds of situations is really high rates
Speaker 1: of biodiversity and high rates of endemism because the habitat
Speaker 1: has been there a long time. So what we think
Speaker 1: is that this species probably has naturally had a small range.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was large at one point, but it's lost
Speaker 1: part of that range due to deforestation. And so there's
Speaker 1: a small population hanging on in the heart of this
Speaker 1: really beautiful and protected afromontane rainforest in Rwanda. And so
Speaker 1: when you say that animals have a high rate of
Speaker 1: endemism in these forests, that means they are only found
Speaker 1: in these really old forests. Why why is it that,
Speaker 1: like when you have a really old region that you
Speaker 1: tend to find animals who are exclusive to that region
Speaker 1: and found nowhere else. Yeah, well so we so it's
Speaker 1: kind of a combination. In that area, you have high
Speaker 1: biodiversity beca the Alberteen Rift because the forest is really old,
Speaker 1: but it's also a very very mountainous landscape, and so
Speaker 1: you've got lots of features that could end up sort
Speaker 1: of allowing species to sort of separate and Specie eight
Speaker 1: and so you end up with and then that's surrounded
Speaker 1: by habitats that maybe are different. So throughout Africa and
Speaker 1: other areas, you know, you we get what we call
Speaker 1: like sky islands, where you get these mountain habitats that
Speaker 1: are surrounded by a sea of lowland, and that is
Speaker 1: also lends itself to endemism, meaning that species occur there
Speaker 1: and nowhere else. So on another project, we're working on
Speaker 1: the critically endangered LaMotte's round leaf fat which is in
Speaker 1: the Nimba Mountains in West Africa, and it only occurs
Speaker 1: in that mountain range because that mountain range is isolated
Speaker 1: and surrounded by a sea of lowland. That's so incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's both really interesting and a little
Speaker 1: bit frightening to me, this idea that we have species
Speaker 1: that are very specialized found in a very tiny range,
Speaker 1: and we could lose them if we lose these habitats,
Speaker 1: like if this, if this tiny area where this hills
Speaker 1: his horseshoe bat is ever threatened, we would lose not
Speaker 1: just this bat, but many other species that are probably
Speaker 1: very highly specialized to this one little region. That's right,
Speaker 1: and that's why it's so incredible the commitment that we
Speaker 1: see from Rwanda and the Rwanda Development Board to protect
Speaker 1: the remaining forests that's there. I mean, Younga National Park
Speaker 1: is the largest intact tract of Afromontine rainforest left in
Speaker 1: central Africa. It's over a thousand kilometers is protected. When
Speaker 1: you drive from Keigali, which is the capital city of Rwanda,
Speaker 1: down to the Young Boy which is in the southwestern
Speaker 1: corner of the country. It's a small country, but it
Speaker 1: takes a while to get there, and it's really mountainous,
Speaker 1: and so the whole drive, um, it's incredible to see
Speaker 1: the mountainous landscape, and most of that is you know,
Speaker 1: covered in in agriculture and in different kinds of crops,
Speaker 1: even up these steep hills sites, it's really incredible. And
Speaker 1: it is until you get to the border of Young
Speaker 1: Way that you get to this point where you can
Speaker 1: look out over the hills and see the landscape draped
Speaker 1: in this Aframontine forest, and it's almost like that you
Speaker 1: can just feel the kind of the mountain sort of breathe.
Speaker 1: And so it's an incredibly valuable important area to protect
Speaker 1: and and and and yet you know, we don't know
Speaker 1: necessarily if other species in some of the other areas
Speaker 1: we might have already lost them, for instance, you know,
Speaker 1: and I want to you know, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a problem the world over that so much of our
Speaker 1: landscape has been converted to agriculture to grow crops and
Speaker 1: feed people, and of course that's super important, but we
Speaker 1: obviously need to find ways to also be able to
Speaker 1: do that and support biodiversity right right, And in the
Speaker 1: problem with monocultures, even if they are efficient in terms
Speaker 1: of feeding people, is that when you only have one
Speaker 1: kind of plant, one kind of crop, that's really not
Speaker 1: conduced of to supporting wildlife that may be specialized in
Speaker 1: feeding on a different kind of vegetation or need some
Speaker 1: variety in their diet. Yeah. And then in the in
Speaker 1: the um Younger National Park has you know, many other
Speaker 1: different species as well. I think it's got the record
Speaker 1: for the most primate species in Rwanda. Of course, Rwanda
Speaker 1: is famous for their amazing conservation of the guerrillas and
Speaker 1: those are up in Volcanoes National Parks. And the Young
Speaker 1: Bay doesn't have grillas, but it does have chimpanzees. And
Speaker 1: I think there's thirteen different species of primates in the
Speaker 1: park too, So lots of um different animals called Youngwa
Speaker 1: home and and and this bat has a small population there.
Speaker 1: And you know, we we initially thought that there was
Speaker 1: a good chance that was roosting in caves because lots
Speaker 1: of different rhino Loofu species living caves um and so
Speaker 1: we were working with the Young Way Park rangers to
Speaker 1: identify the different caves that might be in the park,
Speaker 1: and they did and some incredible work before where we
Speaker 1: got there too, on all of their patrols documenting the
Speaker 1: location of different caves and whether they've seen any sign
Speaker 1: of bats there. And so a big part of our
Speaker 1: effort while we were there was actually serving some of
Speaker 1: those caves um and we we found evidence of other
Speaker 1: species and there other bats, but not hill sworshoe bat,
Speaker 1: and as best we can tell now, um, it seems
Speaker 1: like it's probably a tree roosting bats. So that speaks
Speaker 1: even more to the importance of the forest. Well even
Speaker 1: even bats that recent caves need for us because they
Speaker 1: need places to forage. I mean it is It is
Speaker 1: interesting because I think people do have this concept that
Speaker 1: all bats live in caves are cave cave dollars, and
Speaker 1: indeed there are a lot of species of bats that
Speaker 1: do live in caves, but there are a lot of
Speaker 1: arboreal bats, uh, And just like an incredible diversity of
Speaker 1: bats that all have sort of their own ecological niche
Speaker 1: that they inhabit that's right, about forty of bat species
Speaker 1: roosting caves, but trees are probably the most important resource
Speaker 1: for bats around the world. And we should remember too.
Speaker 1: You know, there's um over four different species of bats
Speaker 1: uh on planet Earth Earth, and so when we talk
Speaker 1: about bats sometimes people forget that there's just so much
Speaker 1: diversity and there's lots of different ways of making a
Speaker 1: bat living out there. Yeah, it's one of the most
Speaker 1: diverse groups of of mammals that I know, I know of.
Speaker 1: It's it's just in terms of their morphology and how
Speaker 1: many different kinds of like there are insectivores, their frugivores
Speaker 1: nick dearivor is just it seems like every sort of
Speaker 1: little area where they could specialize in they will do that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean flight does amazing things for giving you the
Speaker 1: chance to being able to get around the planet and
Speaker 1: also specialized into different niches. Um. Yeah, the only they're
Speaker 1: the second most of verse group of mammals. So rodents
Speaker 1: have the most species and then bats are are in
Speaker 1: second place in terms of number of species on the planet.
Speaker 1: That's really amazing. So, I mean you don't have to
Speaker 1: convince me or probably my listeners because I love bats.
Speaker 1: My listeners love bats. This is basically, even though we
Speaker 1: talk about all sorts of animals, this is a bat
Speaker 1: fan club here. But why is it so important to
Speaker 1: keep track of these rare species of bats and maintain
Speaker 1: their populations? Because because there are so many different species
Speaker 1: of bats, what do we lose when a particular species
Speaker 1: is endangered or goes extinct. The loss of a species
Speaker 1: is in some ways just existential in terms of UM
Speaker 1: what it means. I mean, we know that we share
Speaker 1: the planet with other other organisms, and that UM, biodiversity
Speaker 1: writ large is incredibly important. UM. I think that over
Speaker 1: and over again we've been able to quantify and document
Speaker 1: the value of biodiversity to humans. UM. I like to
Speaker 1: talk about the values that beyond what what species do
Speaker 1: for us. Right. Bats in general provide incredible ecosystem services
Speaker 1: to humans into the planet. Right, So they're incredibly important
Speaker 1: consumers of agricultural pests. In terms of their insectivorous bats. UM,
Speaker 1: that's that pollinate. Uh. Nectivious bats are really important pollinators
Speaker 1: for a variety of different plants, some of which have
Speaker 1: commercial value to human economies, but in also are really
Speaker 1: important for maintaining rainforests. Seat bats that eat fruit and
Speaker 1: disperse seeds have been shown to have really important value
Speaker 1: to rainforest regeneration. They tend to like trees that are
Speaker 1: good pioneer species like figs, and so they fly along
Speaker 1: distances so they can drop seeds places and um. So
Speaker 1: there's there's a strong body of work that shows um
Speaker 1: and puts actual dollar amounts. It's been estimated in the
Speaker 1: United States that insectivious that's provide in the billions of
Speaker 1: dollars to the U S agricultural industry, and researchers in
Speaker 1: Thailand of estimated the value of common fretail bat that
Speaker 1: lives there in terms of the amount of predation that
Speaker 1: does on rice pest and and calculated the number of
Speaker 1: the increased yield due to that predation of that rice
Speaker 1: crop pest and UM. I think even put it in
Speaker 1: terms of how many bags of rice per year um
Speaker 1: that that provides. Oftentimes, when we talk about ecosystem services
Speaker 1: though that that's being provided um by that's that are
Speaker 1: highly abundant and those are super important to text. And
Speaker 1: so your question was about the value of these rare bats.
Speaker 1: So what is the value of this rare species that's
Speaker 1: living in the forest of in one little area of
Speaker 1: one forest in Rwanda. Well, i'd say that it's a
Speaker 1: part of that forest ecosystem. It has, in my view,
Speaker 1: a right to live there. It's certainly, as we've seen
Speaker 1: from the interest in this rediscovery, it certainly has value
Speaker 1: in terms of its ability to capture our attention and
Speaker 1: fascination and and and make us take a moment and
Speaker 1: think about who we are and what our role is
Speaker 1: in that sense of awe and that sense of fascination
Speaker 1: and that sense of respect. I think it's hard to quantify,
Speaker 1: but is real. I absolutely agree, and I I think
Speaker 1: it is. It is an important thing because I do
Speaker 1: talk often about like the importance of animals to the
Speaker 1: world into humans in terms of the sort of this
Speaker 1: tapestry of interactions that helps support the planet which we
Speaker 1: live on, so we need. But I think there is
Speaker 1: something that is more philosophical about preserving species and making
Speaker 1: sure they're still out there. Bear survival is great in
Speaker 1: terms of, you know, the human experience, but we also
Speaker 1: enjoy things like art, and even if it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: like we can't quantify what exactly art does for us,
Speaker 1: but I think It's a similar thing with with species,
Speaker 1: Like here's something that has evolved over millions of years,
Speaker 1: and here it is still alive, Like this live it's
Speaker 1: it's a living, it's all. It's kind of almost goes
Speaker 1: beyond art. I don't know how else to describe it,
Speaker 1: but it's this this living, intricate work of natural beauty
Speaker 1: and art, and it's I think there's something like when
Speaker 1: you hear about one of these species, like you said,
Speaker 1: being rediscovered, it inspires so much hope because we hear
Speaker 1: so much about the planet dying in all of these issues,
Speaker 1: which are very important to talk about, but I think
Speaker 1: it is just as important to talk about the animals
Speaker 1: that can be saved and who are still out there,
Speaker 1: and that you know there is there is hope for
Speaker 1: animals and for humans, because sometimes with all of the
Speaker 1: doomsday news, I think people sometimes get this sense like
Speaker 1: there's no point in trying anymore, everything is doomed. But
Speaker 1: that's really not true. We have so much, so much
Speaker 1: ability to preserve species and to learn find discover things
Speaker 1: that we thought maybe there was no hope for, like
Speaker 1: the fact I mean again, like that we didn't weren't
Speaker 1: able to see these guys for forty years and your
Speaker 1: team found them. It's it is really inspiring. I feel
Speaker 1: that way. I mean, it's hard to describe the feeling
Speaker 1: of of being there and and the incredible sense of
Speaker 1: both privilege and how humble to realize that we had
Speaker 1: the opportunity of a being able to be there and
Speaker 1: that incredible landscape, and and have the opportunity to see
Speaker 1: such a rare species, and and also be there with
Speaker 1: our with our with our colleagues from Rwanda, and and
Speaker 1: Dr Paul Labala from Kenya, and and Prince klaim A
Speaker 1: from the Democratic Republic of Congo. And I mean, we
Speaker 1: had this this team of of people and the sense
Speaker 1: of excitement and connection, and so I couldn't agree more that,
Speaker 1: you know, hope is Hope is not lost. Hope is
Speaker 1: essential to UM to what we do UM. It is
Speaker 1: a there is a real sort of weight to the
Speaker 1: world right now, with climate change and the bio diversity
Speaker 1: crisis and the strife that we're witnessing around the world.
Speaker 1: I think that there are lots of reasons to hope,
Speaker 1: and that one of the one of the one of
Speaker 1: the things that I've noticed is that we can we
Speaker 1: can get into this sort of paralysis of um a
Speaker 1: feeling like the problems are just too big to solve.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've tried really hard to think through
Speaker 1: I mean, part of my job at that Conservation International
Speaker 1: is to identify and prioritize what are the sort of
Speaker 1: most important projects for us to be working on, and
Speaker 1: and and and you can have this moment of paralysis
Speaker 1: of like, well, it's all important, and where do you
Speaker 1: start and and so you really do have to, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of roll up your sleeves and say, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go. We're gonna go. We're gonna do what
Speaker 1: we can in the places where we've got the best
Speaker 1: opportunity any to make a difference. And and there's lots
Speaker 1: of tools out there for us in terms of conservation evidence,
Speaker 1: and you know, prior to the conservation standards, and lots
Speaker 1: of really smart people on this planet are are working,
Speaker 1: you know, really hard to find the ways to give
Speaker 1: us the best chance of success to do conservation. Well.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, you gotta get out
Speaker 1: there and you gotta do the work, and you know,
Speaker 1: collaborate with people and and and then when you have
Speaker 1: those moments where that hard work pays off and you're
Speaker 1: standing in the forest and you see a bat that
Speaker 1: looks really weird and nobody has seen for forty years.
Speaker 1: It is, you know, it's it's nothing short of incredible.
Speaker 1: And then you get to let it go again and
Speaker 1: it flies back out into the forest and it doesn't
Speaker 1: know that it's like super rare and that nobody's seen
Speaker 1: it for forty years. Like it's just I've been doing
Speaker 1: its thing and it and then so there's also the
Speaker 1: sense of the responsibility of going to make sure that
Speaker 1: it can continue to do that, and and that it's
Speaker 1: got that watershed and it's got that forest to keep
Speaker 1: living out. It's it's best life. Like I said, it's
Speaker 1: so wonderful. I will have pictures of this bat in
Speaker 1: the show notes or you can google the Hills his
Speaker 1: horseshoe bat. And but its face is just it's incredible,
Speaker 1: and there's something I mean, there are there are a
Speaker 1: lot of beautiful animals, but to have because it has
Speaker 1: like these these folds and flaps on its face. And
Speaker 1: I assume that the horseshoe name comes from these like
Speaker 1: horseshoe like folds. Yeah, the horseshoe shape to its nose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that goes down and like it looks like a chin
Speaker 1: almost yeah, yeah, and it's it's you just want to ask, like,
Speaker 1: do you know you're so fascinating looking or are you
Speaker 1: just you know, do you want do you understand how
Speaker 1: like we're just captivated by your face and the fact
Speaker 1: we haven't seen you in forty years And but now
Speaker 1: it probably flies off and goes off to find another
Speaker 1: another bug to eat. It's an insectivore, right, Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but when we return,
Speaker 1: we are going to talk more about bats with Dr Frick.
Speaker 1: So we're back, and I think we are. We're amongst
Speaker 1: bat lovers right now, probably people who are listening to
Speaker 1: the show, I would imagine our ball lovers. But a
Speaker 1: lot of people are somewhat afraid of bats or are
Speaker 1: worried about certain misconceptions that they like. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people may have the misconception that most bats
Speaker 1: are like vampire bats, despite the fact that in fact,
Speaker 1: those are the least common species of bats and are
Speaker 1: vastly outnumbered by every other type of bat in the world. Um,
Speaker 1: and they're so people think, oh, a bat is going
Speaker 1: to try to bite me or suck my blood. Um.
Speaker 1: But there are also fears about bats transmitting diseases like rabies. Um,
Speaker 1: So what should people who have a fear of bats
Speaker 1: know about them? There's really no reason to fear bats.
Speaker 1: They're um. Most people won't have the opportunity or pleasure
Speaker 1: to get to see bats ever, which is almost a
Speaker 1: shame because they're incredible. If you get a chance to
Speaker 1: ever see a bat up closed, you would quickly see
Speaker 1: that they have You can google images on the internet,
Speaker 1: I guess, um, and see their Their faces sometimes look
Speaker 1: you know, unusual, like our Hill's horseshoe bat. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's due to their interesting adaptations for their nocturnal lives.
Speaker 1: You know. The flying foxes in particular, are are pretty
Speaker 1: heart melting in terms of um, you know, big eyes
Speaker 1: so they don't go locate in you know, kind of
Speaker 1: standardly cute faces. Videos of flying foxes babies who are
Speaker 1: in rescue eating grapes and bananas, and it's it's the
Speaker 1: most heart melting thing you can see. Yes, I think
Speaker 1: that some people call them sky puppies. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: they're there's really not much to fear that, you know,
Speaker 1: bad bats have gotten a bad rap for a variety
Speaker 1: of different associations. I think, you know, things that are
Speaker 1: associated with being nocturnal sometimes you know, activate sort of
Speaker 1: different kinds of fears, you know, and then you know
Speaker 1: they're vampire bats obviously are a very interesting Uh. There's
Speaker 1: only I think there's three species of vampire bats and
Speaker 1: the four hundred and Um. They have amazing adaptations because
Speaker 1: they are sanguinivorous, which is the fancy word for they
Speaker 1: feed on blood. Um. But they don't suck. Actually, I
Speaker 1: have like shark teeth and they make a little nick
Speaker 1: and then they lap up the very surgical delicate right. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, at some point that got all
Speaker 1: conflated with you know, um vampire mythology, even though vampi
Speaker 1: our beats live in central uh in South America, not
Speaker 1: anywhere near Translbania in Europe. But and then the other
Speaker 1: thing you know to know is that you know, like
Speaker 1: a lot of wild mammals, bats can be a natural
Speaker 1: um reservoir for rabies. They can carry rabies virus, which
Speaker 1: you know is deadly in humans. So if you had
Speaker 1: the misfortune of you know, getting bit bitten by a bat,
Speaker 1: you should definitely go uh to the hospital and get
Speaker 1: your post exposure rabies vaccine because if you contract the
Speaker 1: disease then it's it's fatal, but there's you can get
Speaker 1: the shots and it will boost your immune system and
Speaker 1: you'll be fine. So one of the reasons why bats
Speaker 1: are so associated with rabies is that it's the incidence
Speaker 1: of rabies and that isn't necessarily that much higher than
Speaker 1: in some other types of mammals like raccoons or skunks.
Speaker 1: But the chance that a person in the in the
Speaker 1: public comes across a bat might be if it's on
Speaker 1: the ground outside their garage or something, and the chance
Speaker 1: that there's something wrong with that, that that that that
Speaker 1: is sick is relatively high, because it wouldn't be there
Speaker 1: if it was healthy. So somebody like me who's out
Speaker 1: capturing bats in their wild environments, you know, most bats
Speaker 1: are healthy and fine. Everybody who works with bats does
Speaker 1: have pre exposure um shots for rabies, but there's no
Speaker 1: reason to necessarily be scared of them. So you should
Speaker 1: know what the public health guidances and if you know,
Speaker 1: you come in contact with the bat, and it's best
Speaker 1: not to touch it with bare hands, but to call
Speaker 1: an animal rescue. But it's not like bats are out
Speaker 1: looking to harm us. No, No, I mean there's only
Speaker 1: and I think out of the three vampires and that species,
Speaker 1: there's only one who's ever been even recorded having eaten
Speaker 1: human blood. And it's usually someone who's like near because
Speaker 1: they're they're it's the hairy legged beat and they're adorable
Speaker 1: by the way, the cutest little faces. And but there
Speaker 1: main source is chickens. So if someone is you know,
Speaker 1: lives on a chicken farm and is near these chickens,
Speaker 1: it it may just be sort of and not an
Speaker 1: accidental but sort of an incidental thing happening. And so
Speaker 1: it's so they really don't they don't, but they don't
Speaker 1: hunt humans. They don't seek out humans specifically. Yeah, vampire
Speaker 1: bats don't hunt humans, and they occur in central mex
Speaker 1: Mexico down through South America. But yeah, it's not. The
Speaker 1: perception of that is way overblown from the reality. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the other vampires are specialized on birds and and and
Speaker 1: and most vampire bats feed on cattle yum nowadays. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's and they don't even it's not necessarily even
Speaker 1: uh too much of a threat to the cattle other
Speaker 1: then you know a little little cut they do on
Speaker 1: their ankles. But there could it could be well, but
Speaker 1: they can't transmit they can, yeah, they can transmit rabies.
Speaker 1: It is actually there's some economic cost to rabies transmission
Speaker 1: of livestock. Um. That's a whole another another topic. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, luckily we have vaccines, and vaccines are highly
Speaker 1: effective against rabies. You know. Another another misperception is that
Speaker 1: you know, bats will like fly into your hair and
Speaker 1: all that kind of silliness. You know. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that about bats is that you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're flying at night, and they fly erratically. And
Speaker 1: the reason why they fly erratically is because they're really
Speaker 1: agile flyers and they're looking for insects out of the
Speaker 1: night sky and the um and so when you see
Speaker 1: about sort of fluttering and flipping around and looking like it's,
Speaker 1: you know, doing some crazy dance move, it's because it's
Speaker 1: honing in on an insect and then actually catching that
Speaker 1: insect with it has a a a membrane of in
Speaker 1: between its hind legs and it uses it like a
Speaker 1: catcher's in net. Yeah, and then and then it you know, um,
Speaker 1: finds the insect with its mouth, so it does this
Speaker 1: like you know, quick little duck where then you know,
Speaker 1: get grabs the insect with its feet or its tail
Speaker 1: membrane and then folds up and grabs it. And and
Speaker 1: so that will cause the bat to look like it's
Speaker 1: flying sort of out of control. And so if you
Speaker 1: were watching that and and and you know that it's
Speaker 1: at dusk, and you can't really see them very clearly,
Speaker 1: and so I think some of that erratic flight and
Speaker 1: um the fact that you can't quite picture what it
Speaker 1: looks like might play into some some people feeling scared
Speaker 1: or something. But if you take a moment and realize
Speaker 1: that there's no it's not at all threatening to you,
Speaker 1: and that they're you know, cleaning up all the insects
Speaker 1: out of the sky around you, then it's actually beautiful
Speaker 1: to watch. And then the other thing is that sometimes
Speaker 1: people will find um bats like up in crevices on
Speaker 1: the sides of houses or something, and and so you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you know, if you can't see
Speaker 1: them clearly or something, and they look kind of tucked
Speaker 1: up in there, um, you know, there's no reason to
Speaker 1: be scared of them. But that's the other way that
Speaker 1: people will kind of experience bats maybe kind of like
Speaker 1: you're not expecting to see them and you're kind of startled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's really no reason to be scared. And they're
Speaker 1: they're really and the more you learn about them, the
Speaker 1: more fascinating in terms of just their ability to like
Speaker 1: we're talking earlier, like you sound, to perceive their landscape.
Speaker 1: They're eating insects, um and uh, provide you know, lots
Speaker 1: of services and they're cute and like yeah, and the
Speaker 1: you know, the nectar feeding bats that like slurp up nectar.
Speaker 1: They have you know, long tongues and their important pollinators
Speaker 1: and yeah, they're they're very cool. So that actually leads
Speaker 1: me into some of our listener questions, and so Whitney asks,
Speaker 1: why do some bats have smooth noses and others little
Speaker 1: adorable snouts? So bat faces, like we've talked about, are
Speaker 1: really diverse. I know that face shape has to do
Speaker 1: with different dietary and hunting methods depends on whether the
Speaker 1: bat uses echolocation or not. But it's it's interesting because
Speaker 1: it seems like there's not sort of one rule, like
Speaker 1: you only have a long snout if you're a nectar
Speaker 1: nectarivore um, or you only have a because like it
Speaker 1: seems that there are bats who have short faces who
Speaker 1: are frugivores and also long faces that are frugivores. So
Speaker 1: you'll have flying foxes who have relatively long snouts that
Speaker 1: are frugivores. But then you'll have leaf nose bats who
Speaker 1: also eat fruit who have shorter faces. So it seems
Speaker 1: that these face ships, sorry, these face shapes are highly specialized.
Speaker 1: So maybe a shorter faced a shorter faced bat who
Speaker 1: is a fruit eater maybe eats harder fruit, so it
Speaker 1: has like more of a mechanical advantage with its jaw shape. Um.
Speaker 1: But uh, and you know, like we discussed with the
Speaker 1: Hills his horseshoe bat, that incredible face helps it in
Speaker 1: terms of echolocation. So there are some bats that have
Speaker 1: pointed faces or at least like a pointed kind of
Speaker 1: like nose flat that may help direct echolocation. And so
Speaker 1: there are so many different factors that you have with
Speaker 1: these bats in terms of both their their diet, how
Speaker 1: they perceive the world, in terms of whether they're using echolocation,
Speaker 1: and very specifically, like what kinds of foods in their
Speaker 1: diet they eat. Are they eating hard fruit? Are they
Speaker 1: eating softer fruit? Are they eating nectar? And so? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, but as a as a bad ecologist, you
Speaker 1: must have seen like so many different types of bat faces,
Speaker 1: which I'm so astounded by, like how many different faces
Speaker 1: face shapes that they have. And so in your experience,
Speaker 1: like is there is there an easy answer to like
Speaker 1: the smoothed face versus longer face? I think you give
Speaker 1: a great answer. You're you're totally spot on that it
Speaker 1: has has everything to do with diet, and it has
Speaker 1: a little bit and it well has everything to do
Speaker 1: with diet. And also your family tree. So in the neotropics,
Speaker 1: so in central in the America's there's one family of
Speaker 1: bats called the philas Domada and they are m the
Speaker 1: leaf nos bats, and so they have this very characteristic
Speaker 1: little you know, leaf knows that has this little leaf
Speaker 1: flap of skin. And so that's a trait of that
Speaker 1: whole family. And then within that family, um is where
Speaker 1: we actually see an amazing adaptive radiation of diet diversity
Speaker 1: in bats. So most of um, most of bats are
Speaker 1: in the ancestral state of bats are insectivorous UM and
Speaker 1: echo heating and so all of the amazing diet diversity
Speaker 1: that we think of is mostly contained in the Philus
Speaker 1: domaday so not counting the flying foxes and interopid bats
Speaker 1: of the Old world. So all the nectar feeding bats,
Speaker 1: the forgiverrous bats, so much of the diet diversity that
Speaker 1: we see is in that Philus domad day family. So
Speaker 1: the nectar feeding bats, the and and forgiverous bats, even
Speaker 1: the vampire bats are in that in that family um.
Speaker 1: And there's also insectivorous species in that family as well,
Speaker 1: and so some of that you know, the um the
Speaker 1: nose leaf anyway is a characteristic of that family. And
Speaker 1: then you also have bats in the Old World in
Speaker 1: a different family. Uh. So, like we're talking about the
Speaker 1: horseshoe bats, they have different kinds of adaptations, and that
Speaker 1: characteristic not horseshoe aped uh nose feature is at the
Speaker 1: family level. And then the round leaf bats, which are
Speaker 1: in the Hippo Sidera dae family um, also have a
Speaker 1: very characteristic nose leaf shape that is the charactress of
Speaker 1: that family. So part of it is your you know,
Speaker 1: your family tree and then and then part of it
Speaker 1: is is your diet uh. And and what you're eating.
Speaker 1: There's some great colleagues of mine who actually study the
Speaker 1: bite force of different bat species and looking at that
Speaker 1: bite force relative to the kinds of foods that they eat.
Speaker 1: So the things that you were talking about in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, the hardness of the fruit and whether you're
Speaker 1: primarily drinking nectar or kind of doing both nectar and
Speaker 1: fruit or just eating fruit, um, all of those things
Speaker 1: will come into play in terms of your face shape
Speaker 1: and face features. That's that's really cool. I just I
Speaker 1: love that they have. They express so much personality through
Speaker 1: their faces, and it really does. It is kind of
Speaker 1: an indicator of these like very different, interesting lives that
Speaker 1: they all need. And of course the flying boxes that
Speaker 1: don't echolocate have really big eyes. That makes sense. They're
Speaker 1: not using sound to to hunt hunt for prey or
Speaker 1: find flowers. They're using both vision and smell. So they
Speaker 1: also usually have like larger noses because they're using other
Speaker 1: senses and that's what makes them sky puppies. Yes, so
Speaker 1: friend of the show Sean Baby on Twitter asks, my
Speaker 1: kid and I love a video where Australian bats dive
Speaker 1: bomb a crocodile infested river to get their tummies wet
Speaker 1: so they can suck the water out later. Are they
Speaker 1: anomalies or do all bats drink like total maniacs. So
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that bats actually dive bomb sources
Speaker 1: of water, whether they're going to get their bellies wet
Speaker 1: or to like take little SIPs basically scoop up some
Speaker 1: water with their mouths, is that they cannot stop and
Speaker 1: land near water. Not only would it make them a
Speaker 1: prime target for predators, it is almost it's also very
Speaker 1: difficult or impossible for most species of bats to take
Speaker 1: off directly from the ground. So most bats typically will
Speaker 1: go into flight by dropping down from a perch and
Speaker 1: uh flying. They don't really it's not like a bird
Speaker 1: where they often will take off from the ground. Now,
Speaker 1: there are notable exceptions to that. I believe some species
Speaker 1: of vampire bats and certain insectivores are able to kind
Speaker 1: of do a running hop thing and get off the
Speaker 1: ground and take off into flight. But dr frick do
Speaker 1: you know, like what is sort of the typical method
Speaker 1: for bats to drink water? Yeah, so most bats will
Speaker 1: drink on the what we call drinking on the wing,
Speaker 1: and so they'll fly down and they won't necessarily dip
Speaker 1: their bellies, but they'll just app at water as they
Speaker 1: as they fly. Most bats need to drink free drink water. Um.
Speaker 1: There are some like desert adapted bats that can get
Speaker 1: water from their diet but then don't need access to
Speaker 1: standing water. But water is really important for most bats.
Speaker 1: In fact um, if you've ever worked in the desert
Speaker 1: as a bat biologist, you just you know just how
Speaker 1: important it is, because that's one of the best places
Speaker 1: to catch bats is to um put up your missnets
Speaker 1: over a water hole, and that's will also be attracted
Speaker 1: to water to hunt for insects too. That a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of insects emerge from the water where
Speaker 1: they there's a larval stage of the insect in the water,
Speaker 1: and then they'll come to the surface and and basically
Speaker 1: emerge in the flying form, will take off, and bats
Speaker 1: are looking for those emergent aquatic insects and we'll scoop
Speaker 1: those up actually with their feet off of like an
Speaker 1: osprey hunts for fish. And so that's you may see
Speaker 1: bats going over water, and they may not necessarily just drinking.
Speaker 1: They may also be foraging for insects. So you're right
Speaker 1: that there are some species that can't take off from
Speaker 1: the ground, but I wouldn't I'm not sure i'd characterize
Speaker 1: that most species can't take off from actually say that
Speaker 1: not being able to take off from the ground is
Speaker 1: probably more of the exception than the rule, and and
Speaker 1: certainly some species are much better at it than others.
Speaker 1: Vampire pats are particularly good at sort of hopping and
Speaker 1: levitating up off ground. Palid bats that hunt scorpions on
Speaker 1: the ground are also really good at taking off. A
Speaker 1: lot of we look at the foraging sort of strategies
Speaker 1: of bats based off of their wing shapes, and bats
Speaker 1: that have broad wings are really maneuverable and they're more
Speaker 1: likely to be able to kind of take off, whereas
Speaker 1: bats with narrow wings are more adapted for fast, high
Speaker 1: flying things like the Mexican freetail bat or other freetail bats,
Speaker 1: and they have a harder time taken from the um.
Speaker 1: But you're but you're asolutely right that it it doesn't
Speaker 1: You've got the advantage of flight. It doesn't make a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to land and crawl up to the
Speaker 1: surface of the water. And a lot of bats are
Speaker 1: already you know, foraging for insects, and so the ability
Speaker 1: to just take a sip on the wing um is
Speaker 1: a much better strategy and drink for the road, or
Speaker 1: I to like drink like maniacs, So I'm going to
Speaker 1: use that. And that was Dr Winnifred Cheap, scientist of
Speaker 1: Bat Conservation International. And that was the tail of the
Speaker 1: rediscovered Hills's horseshoe bat, once thought to be extinct, but
Speaker 1: is in fact still flap it around. So before we go,
Speaker 1: we've got to play around of your favorite animal podcast game,
Speaker 1: Guess Who's squawking? Every week I play a mystery animal
Speaker 1: sound and you guess who's making that sound. So last
Speaker 1: week's hint is you may find these little dudes boogieing
Speaker 1: to an imaginary beat, but it's probably for the prey
Speaker 1: that lies deep beneath their feet. Yes, yes, yes, can
Speaker 1: you guess who's squawking? Well, congratulations to Joey P. Aussie
Speaker 1: and Trish H who all correctly guessed it was the
Speaker 1: sound of the American woodcock. So the American woodcock a
Speaker 1: k a. The timber doodle is a small bird found
Speaker 1: in North America. While it's technically a shore bird related
Speaker 1: to sandpipers, woodcocks live in forested areas with a long,
Speaker 1: wedge shaped beak, brown bark like plumage, and compact egg
Speaker 1: shaped frame. It is a serious cutie with a serious
Speaker 1: appetite for worms. Woodcocks rock back and forth as they
Speaker 1: hunt for worms, which biologists speculate maybe away for the
Speaker 1: birds to scare the worms into moving, which makes them
Speaker 1: easier to feel with their feet and catch. The male
Speaker 1: woodcock tries to woo females with their distinctive peat sound
Speaker 1: that they make during mating season. They will also fly
Speaker 1: high up into the sky and zoom back down to
Speaker 1: earth in a serpentine pattern to try to dazzle potential
Speaker 1: mates with their death defying stunts. As mating season tends
Speaker 1: to be in the spring, if you live near forested
Speaker 1: habitats in Atlantic Canada, the East coast of the US,
Speaker 1: or in the Midwest, you may just see a male
Speaker 1: woodcock doing his sky dance. So on to this week's
Speaker 1: mystery animal sound. The hint don't jump to conclusions with
Speaker 1: this sound. M M. Can you guess who's making that sound?
Speaker 1: If you think you know the answer, right to me
Speaker 1: at creature feature Pod at gmail dot com. I'm also
Speaker 1: on Twitter at creature feet Pod. That's f e f
Speaker 1: et that is something very different, or at Katie Golden,
Speaker 1: where I write M Katie Thoughts. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave
Speaker 1: a rating or review, I will deeply appreciate it. I
Speaker 1: read all the reviews and I love them and I
Speaker 1: cherish them. And thanks so much to the Space Classics
Speaker 1: for their super awesome song Exo. Lumina Creature features a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the
Speaker 1: one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or Hey Guess what where if you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows, See you next Wednesday.