Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbam here, You've seen one bat, but you most
Speaker 1: definitely haven't seen them all. That's because after rodents, bats
Speaker 1: make up the second largest order of mammals. There are
Speaker 1: over nine hundred different species fluttering around, from a bumblebee
Speaker 1: sized hognosed bat to gentle giants with wingspans of five
Speaker 1: feet that's a meter and a half or longer. Most
Speaker 1: bats eat insects, and often incopious amounts. Then you've got
Speaker 1: your big game hunters, bats who have evolved strong enough
Speaker 1: jaw muscles that they can prey on vertebrates such as fish, blizzards,
Speaker 1: or birds. And of course, the blood drinking vampire bats
Speaker 1: from Central and South America need no introduction. But not
Speaker 1: all bats are carnivores or vampiric. About three hundred species
Speaker 1: eat fruits and other plant products to survive, which works
Speaker 1: out great for the rest of us because those flying
Speaker 1: creatures really help the environment. One of the most important
Speaker 1: families of bats is the Terrapotidae, also known as the
Speaker 1: Old World fruit bats. They hang out in tropical and
Speaker 1: subtropical parts of Africa, Eurasia, Australia and many Pacific islands.
Speaker 1: Remember those gentle giants we mentioned above. Those would be
Speaker 1: the flying foxes, which are enormous terrapotids that represent the
Speaker 1: largest bats alive today. A species called the giant golden
Speaker 1: crowned flying fox can weigh two and a half pounds
Speaker 1: or about a kilo, which, trust us is big for
Speaker 1: a bat. You may be relieved to hear that it
Speaker 1: is a fruit eater or frugivore with the taste for figs.
Speaker 1: For the article, this episode is based on How Stuffworks.
Speaker 1: Spoke by email with biologist Liam maguire, an assistant professor
Speaker 1: at Texas Tech University. He said terrapottoids eat primarily fruit
Speaker 1: and nectar. For example, nectar from the flowers of eucalypt
Speaker 1: trees is a very important food source for several species
Speaker 1: of flying foxes in Australia, but tear potted diets can
Speaker 1: also include other plants, pollen, leaves, and sometimes insects. Shoots,
Speaker 1: bark and sap are also fair game. But hey, if
Speaker 1: you think the name Old World fruit bats implies the
Speaker 1: existence of New World fruit bats, you're right. Indeed, the
Speaker 1: Americas have no shortage of winged fruit fanciers. The philus
Speaker 1: Domidae is another large bat family, one that's distributed across
Speaker 1: the neotropics of North, South, and Central America plus the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: While many species are committed insect hunters, dozens of these
Speaker 1: animals incorporate plant matter into their diets. Depending on the
Speaker 1: bat in question, fruits, nectars, pollen, or seeds may be
Speaker 1: fair game. How stuff works also spoke by email with
Speaker 1: Nimberto Giannini, mammalogist and research associate at the American Museum
Speaker 1: of Natural History. He said, frigiferous bats in both the
Speaker 1: Old World and the New World tropics eat a variety
Speaker 1: of fruits that tend to be scented, relatively large, green
Speaker 1: to yellow in color, and exposed away from branches and leaves. So,
Speaker 1: for example, bananas, mangoes, figs, and dates are all favorite
Speaker 1: foods for fruit bats. Those Old World terrapotods alone feed
Speaker 1: on more than a thousand different plant species. Over two
Speaker 1: thirds of these grow bats like to consume, and usually
Speaker 1: this relationship has mutual benefits. Seeds swallowed by fruit bats
Speaker 1: get released elsewhere when the animals poop. According to a
Speaker 1: study from nineteen ninety nine, tropical bats in some parts
Speaker 1: of Mexico distribute more seeds in this manner than fruit
Speaker 1: eating birds do. After a forested place is devastated by wildfires, droughts,
Speaker 1: or human activities, fruit bats help it bounce back. A
Speaker 1: research suggests that a colony of some one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty two thousand African straw colored fruit bats can distribute
Speaker 1: more than three hundred thousand seeds in a single night.
Speaker 1: This could be enough to get the reforestation process started
Speaker 1: across nearly two thousand acres or eight hundred hectares of land.
Speaker 1: A flower and nectar eaters do their part as well.
Speaker 1: Bats are pollinators for upward of five hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: types of plants, such as pulsa trees, bananas, and dissorted cactuses.
Speaker 1: Then we have agave, a key ingredient in pequila and
Speaker 1: sweet agave syrup. Migratory bats eat the nectar from their flowers.
Speaker 1: In the process, the mammals spread agave pollen around cross
Speaker 1: fertilizing the plants as they go worldwide. Echolocation is the
Speaker 1: system by which roughly a thousand species of bats find
Speaker 1: food and avoid obstacles. Echolocation is a sound based navigational
Speaker 1: strategy The process starts when an animal releases high frequency
Speaker 1: sound waves through its nose or mouth. By carefully listening
Speaker 1: for the echo of those sounds, the sender can decipher
Speaker 1: a lot about its surroundings. That's how predatory bats track
Speaker 1: down mo and mosquitoes in pitch black darkness. But unlike insects,
Speaker 1: a piece of fruit can't fly away regardless, Giannini explained
Speaker 1: quote all New World forgivorous bats use echolocation. This type
Speaker 1: is called sophisticated laryngeal echolocation, and it's essentially a laryngeal
Speaker 1: call emitted through the nostrils and modulated using a nose leaf.
Speaker 1: Nose leaves are sort of pointed, leafy looking structures found
Speaker 1: around the nasal openings on many bat species faces. In
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, most fruit bats don't echo locate,
Speaker 1: with a few interesting exceptions, Maguire said. Among the Terra
Speaker 1: pot Day, there are bats in the genus Rascetis that
Speaker 1: echo locate by clicking their tongues. This mode of echolocation
Speaker 1: has often been considered primitive, but studies have shown that
Speaker 1: their tongue click echolocation is quite sophisticated. Other Old World
Speaker 1: fruit bats make clicking noises with their wings. It's not
Speaker 1: echo location in the traditional sense, but echoes from those
Speaker 1: clicks do help the animals get around and to aid
Speaker 1: in their quest for vegetarian goodies. Many fruit bats around
Speaker 1: the world have evolved a keen sense of smell, and
Speaker 1: flying foxes possess great eyesight as well, so much for
Speaker 1: the old myth the fats are blind. In today's episode
Speaker 1: is based on the article fruit bats are the best
Speaker 1: pollinators and suppliers of tequila on how stifforks dot com,
Speaker 1: written by Mark Vancini. Brain Stuff is production of by
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is
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