WEBVTT - Save the Bats!

0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.760
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff

0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:16.200
<v Speaker 1>works dot com. Wow, hey, guys, welcome to the podcast.

0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.079
<v Speaker 1>This is Alison I don't know if the science editor

0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.319
<v Speaker 1>how stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb,

0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.200
<v Speaker 1>science writer at how stuff works dot com. And we're

0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:28.120
<v Speaker 1>talking about bats this week. Um, that's in danger. My

0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.560
<v Speaker 1>last encounter with bats really because I mean, I know

0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.320
<v Speaker 1>they're around, but I don't really see them. Um. But

0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.120
<v Speaker 1>the last time I really had an experience with bats

0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.199
<v Speaker 1>was when I was on my honeymoon. Um and my

0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:42.920
<v Speaker 1>wife were in Yalapa, Mexico, near Puerta Viata, and it's

0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.520
<v Speaker 1>a beautiful place and they have all these like huts

0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.279
<v Speaker 1>that you stay in, and um, we we noticed when

0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:50.880
<v Speaker 1>we got in that they were at the top of

0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.840
<v Speaker 1>the hut. Say, these like plastic screens, um, blocking off

0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:57.840
<v Speaker 1>the outside and the first without I guess they you know,

0:00:57.880 --> 0:00:59.520
<v Speaker 1>just forgot to put a window up there that you know,

0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.400
<v Speaker 1>maybe it is raining. We found out later it's such

0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:06.560
<v Speaker 1>an optimist dress. Uh. I found out later that these

0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.319
<v Speaker 1>were to keep the fruit bats from coming in because

0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:11.280
<v Speaker 1>the fruit bats will like fly around on the island

0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.120
<v Speaker 1>and they'll apparently get like eat just gorge themselves on

0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.800
<v Speaker 1>fruit and then go shack up wherever they can find cover,

0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:19.800
<v Speaker 1>and if they can get inside one of these huts,

0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.000
<v Speaker 1>they'll do it, and they'll just hang up in there

0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:25.640
<v Speaker 1>and then just crap all over the place during during

0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.720
<v Speaker 1>the during their stay there. So like people would were

0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.280
<v Speaker 1>staying here, you know often I'm thinking on you know,

0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.680
<v Speaker 1>romantic getaways or their their honeymoon or some special vacation,

0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:36.160
<v Speaker 1>and it takes a lot of trouble to get there

0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:38.800
<v Speaker 1>if you're going this like little boat is this really

0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.959
<v Speaker 1>jarring open boat ride to get there, and then you know,

0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.559
<v Speaker 1>you put your stut luggage inside, leave to hit the beach,

0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.400
<v Speaker 1>come back and there's backuana over everything. Yeah, that's not

0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.160
<v Speaker 1>the way to kick off on honeymoon. But luckily our

0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:54.160
<v Speaker 1>we didn't encounter that. We just encountered plagues of crabs

0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.400
<v Speaker 1>every night. Oh, like the crabs you mentioned an amazing

0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:59.960
<v Speaker 1>infestation about like that, Like lots and lots of crabs.

0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.080
<v Speaker 1>It's like crawling around. You had to just get in

0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:05.800
<v Speaker 1>the bed at night and just not get out. Yeah,

0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.960
<v Speaker 1>my my bad experiences are are not nearly so exciting. Um.

0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.799
<v Speaker 1>I remember growing up in the Northeast we'd be hanging out,

0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:13.960
<v Speaker 1>maybe playing a game of kickballs. The sun was setting

0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.440
<v Speaker 1>and the bats would start to come out, being primarily

0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.560
<v Speaker 1>nocturnal creatures, and we did this weird thing where we

0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.400
<v Speaker 1>would throw our shoes up into the air to see

0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:24.400
<v Speaker 1>if the bats would go after them, and they would,

0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:26.799
<v Speaker 1>you know, they would fly flat out and dive bomb

0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:28.760
<v Speaker 1>for shoes. But they never and they never picked him up.

0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:33.560
<v Speaker 1>I mentioned our shoes probably I never saw that, you know,

0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.040
<v Speaker 1>fly away with one of my shoes on. But yeah,

0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.160
<v Speaker 1>that was pretty much my bad experience. I've heard of

0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.440
<v Speaker 1>people jumping on trampolines before, and if they're jumping on

0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:45.639
<v Speaker 1>them eyed or around dusk, that their their hair will

0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.040
<v Speaker 1>fly up in the air and the bats will come

0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.520
<v Speaker 1>in like dive in their hair. That that's enough to

0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.400
<v Speaker 1>if you need another reason not to jump on a trampoline,

0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:57.560
<v Speaker 1>there you go. So Unfortunately for the insect eating bats,

0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.960
<v Speaker 1>there's a pretty serious bat plague going around that you

0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:02.680
<v Speaker 1>may have heard about because it's been around I think

0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.000
<v Speaker 1>since two thousand five, two thousand and six in the winter.

0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:11.440
<v Speaker 1>They basically a caver discovered this right here, Yeah, as

0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.880
<v Speaker 1>a caver up in upstate New York. I think in

0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.799
<v Speaker 1>a house cave near Albany, New York, and this caver

0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.480
<v Speaker 1>took the first known pictures of them of bats with

0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.839
<v Speaker 1>what they're calling white nose syndrome. Yeah, they're just there's

0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:25.320
<v Speaker 1>a number of bats in there. They've got this white

0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.680
<v Speaker 1>stuff in their nose. Some of them were kind of emaciated,

0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.680
<v Speaker 1>some of them were dead. And people get to figure

0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.120
<v Speaker 1>out that there's something wrong here. Yeah, and it's not

0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.880
<v Speaker 1>just something, it's it's a pretty darn big deal because

0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.840
<v Speaker 1>more than a million bats have died so far, and

0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.080
<v Speaker 1>at least three endangered species, the the Indiana bat, their

0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.280
<v Speaker 1>Virginia figured bat, and possibly the gray bat are at risk.

0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.880
<v Speaker 1>And so this, this white nose syndrome is causing a

0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:56.080
<v Speaker 1>lot of trouble in northeastern bat populations. And the syndrome

0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.480
<v Speaker 1>is actually related to a fungus. And you like, you

0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.200
<v Speaker 1>like the name of particular fungus, So why don't you say, Oh, yeah,

0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:07.400
<v Speaker 1>it's if I can pronounce it, it's uh Geo Micys destructions. Yeah,

0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.480
<v Speaker 1>pretty pretty serious name. Could be it could be the

0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.840
<v Speaker 1>name of a metal band. So it's thought to be

0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.640
<v Speaker 1>a non native pathogen that it was recently introduced to

0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.359
<v Speaker 1>the United States and it's actually, um, it's related to

0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.920
<v Speaker 1>geo mic s panora, which causes skin infections and humans.

0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.400
<v Speaker 1>That also would make a good I think a band

0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.359
<v Speaker 1>name saying yeah, what was the other band name that

0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.640
<v Speaker 1>you're that you came up with? Oh? Um? Yeah. The

0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:33.680
<v Speaker 1>the place where a the area of the cave where

0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.400
<v Speaker 1>the bat that holds up and for the winter is

0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:42.080
<v Speaker 1>called hybernacular or it's a hybernaculum hybernacular, it's the plural.

0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.040
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, that's like if you if you're out there

0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:45.400
<v Speaker 1>right now and you have a death metal band and

0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.440
<v Speaker 1>you're like, what are we gonna call ourselves hyberna hybernaculum,

0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.840
<v Speaker 1>that's what you need to go with. Yeah, okay, so

0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:56.000
<v Speaker 1>um back to geo mics destruct ends the other band name.

0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:58.880
<v Speaker 1>So so far, white nose syndrome has only been found

0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.800
<v Speaker 1>in the insect eating cave hibernating bats. They haven't found

0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.839
<v Speaker 1>it in bats that use like buildings or other manmade structures.

0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.680
<v Speaker 1>Um and biologists don't think it's actually gonna be found

0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.560
<v Speaker 1>in urban environments. Bats with this particular syndrome, aside from

0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:13.840
<v Speaker 1>looking like they've been eating powdered donuts, are doing lines

0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:15.560
<v Speaker 1>or whatever it is these bats have been up to.

0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.200
<v Speaker 1>They have they have skin ulcers that the fungus causes,

0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.760
<v Speaker 1>and like Robert said before, they're you know, really really skinny.

0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:28.080
<v Speaker 1>And what happens is they're hibernating patterns are disrupted. Yeah,

0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.719
<v Speaker 1>they started flying out to like eat bugs in the

0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.160
<v Speaker 1>dead of winter. Yeah, this is going to happen. Right,

0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.240
<v Speaker 1>That's not gonna happen. You know what this reminded me

0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.440
<v Speaker 1>of I am sometimes I read to one of my

0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.000
<v Speaker 1>kids this. Don't you ever hear the book Blueberries for

0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:46.160
<v Speaker 1>sal Okay, So there's this book and salad, her mom McCloskey,

0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.240
<v Speaker 1>Robert McCloskey, one like a caldicot. I don't know. It's

0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.760
<v Speaker 1>one of these classic kids books. So they go out,

0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.599
<v Speaker 1>you know, and they're they're picking blueberries, um sound and

0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.760
<v Speaker 1>her mom and there's a mother bear and a baby

0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.040
<v Speaker 1>bear who are eating berries just to start up for

0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.719
<v Speaker 1>the winter. And so I kind of just imagine, you

0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.080
<v Speaker 1>know what, if you know, grizzly bear woke up out

0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.320
<v Speaker 1>of its hibernation and you know, started crashing around the

0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.599
<v Speaker 1>winter trying to find these berries, It's not going to happen, right,

0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:12.160
<v Speaker 1>So the same deal with the bats, so they're not

0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.480
<v Speaker 1>gonna be able to find their favorite prey, which is insects.

0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.880
<v Speaker 1>So it's disrupting their behavior as well as it's like

0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.680
<v Speaker 1>hurting their minds as well as their bodies. I say,

0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:25.159
<v Speaker 1>the fund is ultimately could cause them to to die

0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:30.400
<v Speaker 1>by way of starvation. So biolog just likely think that

0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.599
<v Speaker 1>um white nose syndrome is spreading from environments to bats,

0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:35.520
<v Speaker 1>and then from bats to bats because they live in

0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.040
<v Speaker 1>these crazy close quarters, you know, with thousands upon thousands

0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.280
<v Speaker 1>of bats, and they're they're keeping actually encouraging cavers to

0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.760
<v Speaker 1>uh spelunkers to stay out of these caves as well, right,

0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:47.719
<v Speaker 1>because we might be part of the problem spreading it

0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.080
<v Speaker 1>from one cave environment to another. Yeah, so the US

0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.240
<v Speaker 1>for Service cracked down. They closed like thousands of caves

0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.120
<v Speaker 1>and two thousand nine and they're trying to also see

0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.560
<v Speaker 1>about like raising some in captivity to sort of safeguard

0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.880
<v Speaker 1>the popular lations. But left we heard it hasn't actually

0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.640
<v Speaker 1>been working all that well. Yeah, the National Zoo which

0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.239
<v Speaker 1>awarded some funds to raise a Virginia big eared bats,

0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:12.920
<v Speaker 1>one of the endangered species of bats that they're worried about, say,

0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.560
<v Speaker 1>they had a population of forty and I think they

0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.760
<v Speaker 1>are left with eleven. It's just really tricky, like they

0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.360
<v Speaker 1>don't know how to raise bats in captivity. They're having

0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:23.280
<v Speaker 1>trouble getting the bats to eat from these you know,

0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.200
<v Speaker 1>trays with little worms on them. Yeah, it's just not

0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.840
<v Speaker 1>not their natural way of doing things at all. Yeah,

0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:31.680
<v Speaker 1>we don't really have enough to get a bunch of

0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:36.080
<v Speaker 1>kids um or you know, your childhood friends out there

0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.600
<v Speaker 1>throwing bugs up in the air form. That's what's gonna work.

0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.559
<v Speaker 1>Shoes shoes full of worms. So they think about white

0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:44.360
<v Speaker 1>nose syndrome is that there's no cure for it, so

0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.880
<v Speaker 1>we really just have to contain its spread. Right. Another

0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.440
<v Speaker 1>tricky thing about bats is that they're really susceptible to

0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.680
<v Speaker 1>extinction because of the way they reproduce. Each female has

0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.720
<v Speaker 1>one baby bat like per per cycle, so I mean

0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.560
<v Speaker 1>it's per year, per year, so it's uh, you know,

0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.560
<v Speaker 1>you one female bat dies, that's going to really cut

0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.240
<v Speaker 1>into the into their population. Uh. They're also long living.

0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.720
<v Speaker 1>They live about what thirty years, so so yeah, they're

0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.120
<v Speaker 1>some Some animals that reproduced at a greater rate wouldn't

0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.960
<v Speaker 1>be as though as hard hit by this like a bunny. Yeah, bunnies. Yeah,

0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.200
<v Speaker 1>so it's really unfair. Why are there no bunny diseases

0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.520
<v Speaker 1>going around? White bunny knows? Isn't there that one? What

0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.840
<v Speaker 1>is it called tolmia? What happens when you live in Atlanta?

0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:33.200
<v Speaker 1>Like capital of public health? Um? So, the bottom line

0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.040
<v Speaker 1>about this fungal infection is that they're not sure if

0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.200
<v Speaker 1>by itself it's causing the bats to die. They've tested

0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.320
<v Speaker 1>some infected bats because they want to know if the

0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.240
<v Speaker 1>infection is occurring with other stuff like viruses or bacteria

0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.640
<v Speaker 1>or parasites, but they haven't found anything yet. It could

0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:53.320
<v Speaker 1>be something that's affecting their they're immune function and making

0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:57.480
<v Speaker 1>them more suscepted, susceptible to this white fungus. And the

0:08:57.520 --> 0:08:59.800
<v Speaker 1>other thing is just because they've tested for known organisms,

0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:01.640
<v Speaker 1>does I mean that there's not some new virus out

0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.000
<v Speaker 1>there that is a at work in the bats and

0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.320
<v Speaker 1>the insect eating bats, Which is another reason to keep

0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.440
<v Speaker 1>cabs and spelkers away because you never know when one

0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:11.840
<v Speaker 1>of these are gonna make the jump from one species

0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:14.520
<v Speaker 1>to another. Oh, they're so far they don't think that

0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:19.400
<v Speaker 1>white nose syndrome is harmful to humans. So far. I'm

0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:21.600
<v Speaker 1>just saying, no, don't be doing that. I don't want

0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.760
<v Speaker 1>you to go spreading false alarm. So I do want

0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:26.920
<v Speaker 1>to talk a little bit about fungal infections because they're

0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.679
<v Speaker 1>pretty freaking interesting. Um. The thing about them, like we

0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.920
<v Speaker 1>were just saying, is that they're opportunistic, right, So of

0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:36.320
<v Speaker 1>course the fungus can cause diseases in people who have

0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:40.199
<v Speaker 1>regular old immune systems. Um, Like there's one in Arizona.

0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.480
<v Speaker 1>You know that's transmitted through the dust. You know, if

0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:44.400
<v Speaker 1>you breathe in the soil, it's it's transmitted by that.

0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:48.160
<v Speaker 1>You wind up with pulmonary problems and breathing problems whatever.

0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.199
<v Speaker 1>But a lot of times you'll find fungal infection occurring

0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.000
<v Speaker 1>people with subpart immune system. Say you have a person

0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.720
<v Speaker 1>with AIDS whose white blood cell count has fallen pretty

0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:02.239
<v Speaker 1>darn low all of a sudden, some running them all. Um,

0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.360
<v Speaker 1>fungal infections, say, like thresh is going to start giving

0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.880
<v Speaker 1>you all sorts of headaches. But one of the most

0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:12.880
<v Speaker 1>feared fungal infection stems from Cryptococcus so after TV cryptococlemaningius

0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.360
<v Speaker 1>has emerged as one of these like crazy fungal infections

0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.400
<v Speaker 1>that is really just dealing the final blow to patients

0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.480
<v Speaker 1>with AIDS. So it's kind of a cain if you

0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.360
<v Speaker 1>imagine this um in bats, you know, imagine that there's

0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.960
<v Speaker 1>something at work in the in the bats immune system,

0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.400
<v Speaker 1>and then maybe this white nose syndrome is dealing the

0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.040
<v Speaker 1>final blow. The bottom line is they don't know. I mean,

0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.240
<v Speaker 1>at least in people with fungal infections, they can treat

0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:37.560
<v Speaker 1>them with anti fungals or you know, if you have AIDS,

0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.480
<v Speaker 1>you can treat them with anti ritro vils. But how

0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:42.080
<v Speaker 1>are we going to do that with bats? Good luck?

0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:44.880
<v Speaker 1>You might be asking yourself if you're not just a

0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:49.040
<v Speaker 1>natural animal lover and bat lover, um, like, why do

0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.760
<v Speaker 1>we care? Why are we sinking money into this um?

0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.320
<v Speaker 1>And the reason is that bats, in addition to just

0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.920
<v Speaker 1>being you know, fantastic, they eat a lot of insects.

0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.160
<v Speaker 1>That's um. I mean, they they play an important role

0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.120
<v Speaker 1>in the ecosystem. And what they do is they eat

0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.199
<v Speaker 1>lots of insects and they also inspired Batman. Well yeah,

0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.680
<v Speaker 1>but Batman will still be here. These guys go the

0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:13.679
<v Speaker 1>way of the But the little brown bat, one of

0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:15.960
<v Speaker 1>the most common North American bat species, can catch and

0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.320
<v Speaker 1>eat as many as twelve mosquitoes in one hour. The

0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.199
<v Speaker 1>famous colony of Mexican treetail bats that lives underneath the

0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.960
<v Speaker 1>Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas will eat up to

0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:30.160
<v Speaker 1>thirty thousand pounds of insects in a single night. That'd

0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.680
<v Speaker 1>be like, um, I mean, I don't even know the

0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.200
<v Speaker 1>mathematical proportions there, but I mean it sounds like like

0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.320
<v Speaker 1>if you just hit the buffet every evening and just

0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.160
<v Speaker 1>loaded up on like General Sis chicken. Yeah, these guys

0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.280
<v Speaker 1>are still flying around for the whole night. Yeah, I mean,

0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.160
<v Speaker 1>I don't think humans could walk if they ate this much,

0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.800
<v Speaker 1>noting the kmmoto dragon could maybe do it, definitely, the

0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:54.439
<v Speaker 1>Commodo dragon could do it. Agriculturally speaking, Um, a lot

0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.880
<v Speaker 1>of these are pasts that harmer crops. So if you

0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.000
<v Speaker 1>don't have bats there too to take care of them,

0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:02.120
<v Speaker 1>then how are you gonna get rid of them? What

0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.160
<v Speaker 1>are you gonna spread more DDT around? Which, in addition

0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.280
<v Speaker 1>to being rather harmful um to the environment, yet a

0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.760
<v Speaker 1>number of these insects have have evolved resistances to it. Yeah,

0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:14.680
<v Speaker 1>So you remove the bats from the equation and things

0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:18.480
<v Speaker 1>could get a little dicier agriculturally speaking, But I should

0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:22.240
<v Speaker 1>stress that it's not exactly bats alone or controlling mosquito

0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.400
<v Speaker 1>populations or insect populations. It is sort of a multi

0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:30.080
<v Speaker 1>pronged approach. Yeah, I mean it's again, it's like they're

0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.000
<v Speaker 1>a part of the ecosystem. The ecosystem is like this

0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.320
<v Speaker 1>big Jenga puzzle, and if you start removing a little,

0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.880
<v Speaker 1>um little blocks from the Jenga tower, then the tower

0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:41.440
<v Speaker 1>is gonna get unstable. Yeah, especially if you play Jengo

0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.840
<v Speaker 1>with your feet. Yeah, which have you read that that

0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:47.839
<v Speaker 1>we tried one, So it's really hard. Yeah, it sounds

0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.880
<v Speaker 1>like a disaster. Yeah, but you know it's Jengo, so

0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:52.319
<v Speaker 1>it's not like anything's kind of like it sounds like

0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.360
<v Speaker 1>an analogy. It's like when you just playing Jenga with

0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:59.520
<v Speaker 1>your feet on that way. Yeah, maybe, well, suicide from

0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.680
<v Speaker 1>agricult actual implications. There are also implications for public health,

0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.679
<v Speaker 1>as you might imagine. So mosquitoes like to carry diseases

0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.600
<v Speaker 1>such as malaria or rest nile. So all of a sudden,

0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.280
<v Speaker 1>if you have a booming mosquito population, um, we could

0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.360
<v Speaker 1>see an uptick in those kind of diseases and humans. Yeah,

0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.600
<v Speaker 1>I mean you can actually purchase bat houses to encourage

0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:21.959
<v Speaker 1>bats to live in your property so they'll eat the mosquitoes.

0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.040
<v Speaker 1>You know. I would like to have one, actually, yeah,

0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:25.280
<v Speaker 1>I really want to get one of those. And I

0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:26.880
<v Speaker 1>want to get an owl house because I like hav

0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.040
<v Speaker 1>an owls. About maybe a woodpacker house. I don't know.

0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.960
<v Speaker 1>Whatever I can have flying around eating bugs is good.

0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.560
<v Speaker 1>So what can we do about white nose syndrome? Well,

0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:37.760
<v Speaker 1>you know there are a couple of things. Um, we

0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:39.760
<v Speaker 1>could try to contain the spread, as the US Force

0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.280
<v Speaker 1>Services done, you know, closing caves and things like that.

0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.520
<v Speaker 1>And we can always throw some money at the problem. Yeah,

0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:50.720
<v Speaker 1>and encourage your your lawmakers to support funding, and we

0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:52.800
<v Speaker 1>can try to learn how to raise endangered bats and

0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.720
<v Speaker 1>captivity fast as the Smithsonian Zoo is doing with sort

0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.560
<v Speaker 1>of mixed Look. Hey, actually you can even blog about it.

0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:01.760
<v Speaker 1>There's the There was a white nose blog hosted by

0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:03.760
<v Speaker 1>the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I did check it out.

0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.120
<v Speaker 1>There was only one entry. It was really cute though.

0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.360
<v Speaker 1>She was a biologist and she was she put you

0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.240
<v Speaker 1>know her the bats like that would really be more

0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:16.240
<v Speaker 1>interesting for blogging. It was a biologist blogging about bats.

0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.240
<v Speaker 1>Try saying that ten times fast. And you also can

0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.360
<v Speaker 1>can help out in the in the bat fight. You

0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.200
<v Speaker 1>can report active winter or summer roosting sides. You can

0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.240
<v Speaker 1>if you see bats flying around in the winter like

0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:30.680
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of them, not like a loane bat, but

0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.320
<v Speaker 1>like a bunch of bats, you need to contact somebody,

0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.840
<v Speaker 1>your local wildlife service. And you know, you could always

0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.920
<v Speaker 1>build a bad house, especially since that we most of

0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.920
<v Speaker 1>these cases have been isolated caves. The more bad houses

0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.640
<v Speaker 1>the better. So in case all of this doesn't really

0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.160
<v Speaker 1>make you care about bats, then we are. Our final

0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.760
<v Speaker 1>point is what about that i guano? Baguano, as it

0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.200
<v Speaker 1>turns out, is an amazingly useful substance. Yeah, it plays

0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:59.120
<v Speaker 1>a vital role in cave ecologies. Um, I imagine everybody's

0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:04.720
<v Speaker 1>seen the television series Planet Earth from a few years back,

0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.880
<v Speaker 1>same people who made Life, Yeah, I which we wrote

0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:09.840
<v Speaker 1>a whole lot of content around. But there's a whole

0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:15.000
<v Speaker 1>episode about the ecology inside a particular cave and there's

0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.080
<v Speaker 1>like just a mountain of bat guando and and like

0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.040
<v Speaker 1>their insects live live that live off the guano and

0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.360
<v Speaker 1>live in the guano. Um, yeah, take that away, you know,

0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:24.920
<v Speaker 1>remove the bats from the equation, and there are a

0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:26.840
<v Speaker 1>number of other species that depend on the bats. It's

0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.000
<v Speaker 1>like the snake. Like the snake. There's a snake that

0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.240
<v Speaker 1>jumps out of like like like he's blind and he

0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.160
<v Speaker 1>like here's the bat flying by, and it will just

0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.520
<v Speaker 1>strike out and like grab it bat out of midair.

0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.160
<v Speaker 1>It's amazing. That is pretty amazing. Yeah, So bat guano

0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:44.080
<v Speaker 1>is actually pretty useful for its nitrogen. It's pretty nitrogen heavy,

0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.080
<v Speaker 1>and that's pretty useful when it comes to you know,

0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:51.280
<v Speaker 1>say making a bomb, making household cleaner. Oh yeah, Actually

0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.080
<v Speaker 1>two things on that. First of all, I remember correctly,

0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.680
<v Speaker 1>there's a part in Coral McCarthy's Blood Meridian where they

0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.400
<v Speaker 1>they're being trailed by these by one tribe or another,

0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:05.320
<v Speaker 1>these bunch of this ragtag bunch of cowboys and uh

0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:07.400
<v Speaker 1>and they they're completely out of ammo and they end

0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:09.840
<v Speaker 1>up like hitting up a cave and like scraping up

0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.920
<v Speaker 1>all this back wando um. And then they then they

0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.000
<v Speaker 1>think they go to like a volcano, and then they

0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.359
<v Speaker 1>start and they get some more ingredients to make gunpowder,

0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:19.240
<v Speaker 1>and they like put it all together the last minute

0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.200
<v Speaker 1>and fight off the villains slowing their all villains in

0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:24.560
<v Speaker 1>that book. But then, um, and as far as it

0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:27.720
<v Speaker 1>being a cleaning agent that I guess could maybe be

0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.840
<v Speaker 1>used to uh to one's advantage in places like Lapa.

0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.320
<v Speaker 1>You encourage the bats to come in to use the

0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.600
<v Speaker 1>restroom on everything, and then you've got a natural cleaning

0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:39.920
<v Speaker 1>agent right there, right then you don't have to hire

0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:41.400
<v Speaker 1>somebody to do it. You just you know, and get

0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.480
<v Speaker 1>the bats, get them to scrub, and then you've got

0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:50.200
<v Speaker 1>it taken care of. Good points, Robert. So if you

0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:51.720
<v Speaker 1>want to hear more, you can come check out the

0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.080
<v Speaker 1>blogs on the homepage, where you can find out what

0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.640
<v Speaker 1>our podcast for the week or about, and learn about

0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.080
<v Speaker 1>other bits of weird science e news. Yeah, any know

0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:01.600
<v Speaker 1>is shoot just a comment too. We love to hear

0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.120
<v Speaker 1>from you, um, whether you have a question about bats

0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.720
<v Speaker 1>or white nose syndrome or a suggestion for a podcast,

0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:08.960
<v Speaker 1>send us an email at science stuff at how stuff

0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:18.840
<v Speaker 1>works dot com for more on this and thousands of

0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.200
<v Speaker 1>other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com. Want

0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:24.879
<v Speaker 1>more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the

0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:26.560
<v Speaker 1>house stuff works dot com home page