Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Happy October everyone. I'm your ghostly host of Many Parasites,
Speaker 1: Katie Golden, and I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and
Speaker 1: I think birds are pretty neat. But today on the show,
Speaker 1: we're going in a more mammalian direction when it comes
Speaker 1: to flying bats. Den and and and then bat facts.
Speaker 1: That's right. Today we're going to take an in depth
Speaker 1: look at one of our favorite creepy critters, the bat.
Speaker 1: Why do bats hang upside down? How did bats become
Speaker 1: associated with Dracula? What are some of the craziest bat
Speaker 1: species in the world that you've probably never heard of?
Speaker 1: Discover this and more as we answered the angel question,
Speaker 1: if batman was bitten by a radioactive bat, what powers
Speaker 1: would he have? So right off the bat? Why are
Speaker 1: we scared of bats? I'm using we loosely. I certainly
Speaker 1: love bats, and I know many of you do as well.
Speaker 1: I think the book Stella Luna did a great job
Speaker 1: of removing some of the stigma against bats. But still,
Speaker 1: bats are creatures of the night and are associated with vampires, Halloween,
Speaker 1: haunted mansions, and other spooky stuff. They're often feared as
Speaker 1: carriers of rabies, as blood suckers, or as pests who
Speaker 1: will nest in your hair if you wear an attractive
Speaker 1: up to inside a cake. Today, we're going to explore
Speaker 1: some of these myths and show you that you really
Speaker 1: shouldn't be afraid of bats well in most cases. Joining
Speaker 1: me today to get her blood sucked is bat Lever,
Speaker 1: writer and co host of the show night called Molly Lambert. Hello.
Speaker 1: Should I say lambat? You can say lambat? Or should
Speaker 1: I say Lambert Molly Lambat? Or should I say Lambert?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me on today, Katie.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to talk about baths. I know
Speaker 1: I wrote this special for you because you mentioned you
Speaker 1: like bats. I've been talking about baths a lot recently anyway. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then when you said it was a good idea
Speaker 1: to do it for an October episode, just all came together. Yes,
Speaker 1: it certainly did. I'm very excited for this because I
Speaker 1: think bats are one of the coolest groups of animals
Speaker 1: in the world. And it's also it's it's Halloween times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I was like, I would like to know
Speaker 1: everything about bats, and you can provide that service. I don't.
Speaker 1: There's such a They're so diverse that I'm there's no
Speaker 1: way we can cover in like an hour, in a
Speaker 1: few minutes, everything about bats, but I'm gonna try. We'll
Speaker 1: fly over the surface. So bats have a special place
Speaker 1: in folklore as spooky creatures, and it goes just beyond
Speaker 1: Halloween and vampires. There are many legends in cultures around
Speaker 1: the world and throughout history that feature the bat, and
Speaker 1: it's not always negative. So in ancient Egypt, bats were
Speaker 1: thought to be defenders against demons. Hanging a bat over
Speaker 1: your doorway would stop disease toting demons from entering your home.
Speaker 1: In China, the bat is a symbol of happiness and
Speaker 1: good fortune. Uh And in Cherokee fables, birds and mammals
Speaker 1: were playing a game of ball when a small mouse
Speaker 1: like creature tried to join the mammals teams, but it
Speaker 1: was mocked and scorned by the larger animals. The birds
Speaker 1: took pity on the bat and fashion wings man out
Speaker 1: of a hide from a drum so he could join
Speaker 1: the birds team, and therefore the bat was created. In
Speaker 1: the Creek version of this fable, the birds are the
Speaker 1: ones who reject the bat and the mammals give bird
Speaker 1: teeth and then that's how the bat happens. And then
Speaker 1: in Mayan folklore, the Miyan bat god Cama zalts is
Speaker 1: the death bat, which was a god of night, death
Speaker 1: and sacrifice. In one legend, he stole the plucked head
Speaker 1: off of a Mayan hero and hung the head up
Speaker 1: on the god's ball court to play with. So it's
Speaker 1: interesting a few of these bats are their origin stories
Speaker 1: are in ball games or yeah, and they definitely makes
Speaker 1: sense for them to be associated with night because that's
Speaker 1: when they come out. I heard the thing about Chinese
Speaker 1: uh folklore about bats being good fortune in another documentary
Speaker 1: because apparently the word for bat sounds identical to the
Speaker 1: word for good fortune. That's right. There's like the five
Speaker 1: baths like a homophone. Yeah, and then there's this really
Speaker 1: cool pattern motif of bats that is like the good
Speaker 1: fortune yeah logo. I love it, like the five bats
Speaker 1: of fortune. Yeah. I like when a creature has a
Speaker 1: bad reputation and then you can explain why it's not deserved.
Speaker 1: They're like a boy They're like a boy band. You
Speaker 1: have five bats. You think they're kind of bad boys,
Speaker 1: but they're really sweet they're all the cute one, the
Speaker 1: bad boy, and the sweet one, the sensitive bat. And
Speaker 1: you know, they do sometimes have a more negative connotation
Speaker 1: and culture as we know. In the eighteen book Fairy
Speaker 1: Legends and Traditions of South Ireland, bats were fabled to
Speaker 1: hijack human bodies and take them on joy ride. So
Speaker 1: here's a quote from the book. Quote the Fuca, I
Speaker 1: think is how it's pronounced. The Fuka would take his
Speaker 1: victims on great adventures as far away as the moon.
Speaker 1: He compels the man of it has got possession and
Speaker 1: who is incapable of making any resistance, to go through
Speaker 1: various adventures in a short time. It hurries with him
Speaker 1: over precipices, carries him up into the moon and down
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the sea. Uh So, basically, the Fuca,
Speaker 1: which is like some kind of bat demon, would take
Speaker 1: over your body and just right it around town. Sounds fun,
Speaker 1: It does sounds fun. I don't know. I feel like
Speaker 1: in terms of demonic possession, that's pretty cool. If they
Speaker 1: take you to the moon, the bottom of the ocean,
Speaker 1: anything where you get to fly, It's like, who's going
Speaker 1: to say no to that? Come on, and one of
Speaker 1: the big questions that I had, and I think some
Speaker 1: of our listeners would have, is how bats got associated
Speaker 1: with Dracula and vampires in general. So Steve from Twitter asks,
Speaker 1: why did bats get the blood sucking reputation when very
Speaker 1: few types of bats drink blood? What about leeches, most mosquitoes, etcetera, um,
Speaker 1: And I think that this is bats became a really
Speaker 1: prominent and popular culture following Dracula, and then even though
Speaker 1: there's only like three species that drink blood, Dracula is
Speaker 1: such a phenomenon in terms of a popular book that
Speaker 1: when bats entered the public consciousness, the vampire bat, the
Speaker 1: blood sucking bat, the connection to Dracula really kind of cemented. So,
Speaker 1: according to an article from the Florida Bat Conservation Center
Speaker 1: by Elizabeth Miller, vampire folklore predated the discovery of vampire bats,
Speaker 1: at least in the case of Spanish explorers. When they invaded,
Speaker 1: explored whatever you want to call it, invaded, um anyways,
Speaker 1: invaded Central and South America. The Spaniards quote unquote discovered
Speaker 1: bats who would lap up blood, and they called them vampires.
Speaker 1: Dracula wasn't the first man bat. There was Varney the Vampire,
Speaker 1: which was written fifty years before brom Stoker's Dracula, which
Speaker 1: featured a bat shaped vampire. Man. You know, here comes
Speaker 1: of our Ernie. I guess with a name like that,
Speaker 1: it's going to be hard to become the most famous vampire.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have this quite ring of Dracula. It sounds like
Speaker 1: it sounds like a down home kind of Midwest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's making me think about Earnest. Yeah, Earnest goes to Transylvania.
Speaker 1: Who's Jim Barney is. Yeah, exactly plays Earnest. But also
Speaker 1: it has a real twine to it. But I like
Speaker 1: the idea of kind of a country vampire vampire. Just
Speaker 1: you know, I don't like the vampires always have to
Speaker 1: be so aristocratic, right, right, you have a vampire who's like, now, now,
Speaker 1: hold on their listen. I'm gonna suck your blood, but
Speaker 1: don't take it too personal. Well, there's also a connection
Speaker 1: between bats and uh farming. Yeah, yeah, because bats are
Speaker 1: often especially vampire bats are often pests when it comes
Speaker 1: to cattle. Oh well, I was going to say the opposite,
Speaker 1: that they're positive because they eat all the apprently like
Speaker 1: corn fields and stuff like that. Yeah, and sucked of wars.
Speaker 1: Bats are actually extremely important. Right, it's the vampire bats
Speaker 1: that give the insectivore bats the bad reputation. But even
Speaker 1: vampire bats, it's not like they drain an animal. They
Speaker 1: just like kind of take a little bit, like a mosquito,
Speaker 1: a little bit. That Really the only danger from vampire
Speaker 1: bats is the potential to spread rabies, which is really overstated.
Speaker 1: I've heard it is. Yeah, so we'll get into that
Speaker 1: into depth a little bit later. What's interesting is that
Speaker 1: misconception you mentioned about vampire bats is really what inspired, uh,
Speaker 1: the transformation from Dracula into a bat. So when brom
Speaker 1: Stoker was writing Dracula, he read this news story about
Speaker 1: um vampire bat, and uh he misunderstood or exaggerated the
Speaker 1: details from the story. So in his book he writes, uh, quote,
Speaker 1: one of those big bats that they call the vampires
Speaker 1: has got at a mare during the night, and there
Speaker 1: wasn't enough blood in her to let her stand up. So,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned van here about to teeny tiny, they're
Speaker 1: little tiny cuties. They can't drain and you like a
Speaker 1: mosquito that could drain you is terrifying. That is true that, yeah,
Speaker 1: just a huge bloated mosquito I mean, really what you
Speaker 1: were saying about leeches. We talked about leeches on Nightcall,
Speaker 1: and we recently read a horror story for our book
Speaker 1: club with this ginge eedo book. Smashed has a book. Oh.
Speaker 1: The first story is about vampire baths and it's really scary.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't blame the vampire baths. Yeah, nor should
Speaker 1: it um, but leeches, Like it kind of just makes
Speaker 1: sense that bats are more photogenic, yeah, perhaps than leeches.
Speaker 1: I mean leeches, leaches are scarier because they have their
Speaker 1: face like bats are cute. Yeah, and I would say
Speaker 1: that just in terms of the awareness. Leeches not as
Speaker 1: kind of aware and as smart as a bat, So
Speaker 1: I genuinely feel less empathy towards a leech. I don't
Speaker 1: hate leeches though, because they aren't necessarily that bad. We
Speaker 1: probably don't hate any creature. Well, no, that's not true.
Speaker 1: I hate fleas because of what Because like when I
Speaker 1: find a flee on my dog and like bring me
Speaker 1: to health, right, I feel that way about all insects.
Speaker 1: Worm Like, I like them in theory, but then if
Speaker 1: they're like in my house, I don't want them to
Speaker 1: be there, and I try to get them out. I
Speaker 1: actually don't mind insects, Like in my house. It's it's
Speaker 1: specific to like if there's a pest that's bothering my dog,
Speaker 1: like a tick or flee. I get really angry at
Speaker 1: it because I take it personally. Well. I watched like
Speaker 1: a local Pennsylvania documentary about baths, and it had this
Speaker 1: whole section about like how everybody knows that baths come
Speaker 1: to live in your house during the winter, um and
Speaker 1: it encouraged people to let the bats stay in your
Speaker 1: house because they eat bugs and they don't really hurt you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, in general, they aren't really that harmful. I
Speaker 1: would say probably better to try to set up bad
Speaker 1: houses outside of the house, just because you know, humans
Speaker 1: and bats, it's not it's never a good situation to
Speaker 1: either way to kind of try to interfere with them
Speaker 1: or have them in the same space shares like a birdhouse.
Speaker 1: It's basically like a birdhouse. Yeah, and we actually we're
Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about the houses too.
Speaker 1: I think like the fear of bats really comes from
Speaker 1: the vampire bat. And you know that's as we stated,
Speaker 1: like there's obviously other bats that are not they don't
Speaker 1: drink blood. In fact of the species of bats, only
Speaker 1: three drink blood. All are native to the America's so
Speaker 1: they're all really big. The vampire bat, No, no, they're tiny.
Speaker 1: Yeah what am I thinking? Of the fruit the flying
Speaker 1: foxes fruit bats tend to be bigger. Yeah. Vampire bats
Speaker 1: have really rapid metabolisms because they're so small. Uh, they
Speaker 1: need to get a blood meal about every night. Um,
Speaker 1: and if they go too long between feedings they'll die.
Speaker 1: Kind of like how hummingbirds. They're so small and they
Speaker 1: have such a rapid metabolism they need to constantly eat. Um.
Speaker 1: Luckily blood is more I guess a little bit more
Speaker 1: sustaining nectar, so they only need to feed about once
Speaker 1: a night. They do. This is a cute thing, so
Speaker 1: they kind of have a social safety net for if
Speaker 1: a bat doesn't get a meal. Uh. So, well fed
Speaker 1: bats will trade their food with a neighbor for grooming.
Speaker 1: So by trade food, I mean regurgitated into their mouth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this comes up in the ginge etostoria. It's adorable though,
Speaker 1: because they'll if you, you know, if you're a little
Speaker 1: bat and you're like, oh, I'm so hungry, if you
Speaker 1: just like groom another bat, the bat will regurgitate blood
Speaker 1: into your mouth. It's a beautiful thing. Especially females. When
Speaker 1: there's a new mother, they're especially willing to help her out,
Speaker 1: which I think is such an interestingly empathetic social relationship.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, so let's talk about these three species
Speaker 1: of vampire bats. So there's the common vampire bat, which
Speaker 1: I think is what people are most familiar with. There's
Speaker 1: the white winged vampire bat, which is very similar to
Speaker 1: the common vat pire bat. And then there's the hairy
Speaker 1: legged vampire bat, which is really interesting, little cutie. So
Speaker 1: the common vampire bat is found in Mexico, Central and
Speaker 1: South America mostly. Uh, they feed on livestock. They won't.
Speaker 1: They don't drain them dry of blood. That's just impossible.
Speaker 1: They prefer it. One thing is true, they do prefer
Speaker 1: horses to cattle, so at least brom Stoker got that right.
Speaker 1: But they will whatever is basically available to them. They're opportunistic. Um.
Speaker 1: They're kind of superpowered because they have noses that are
Speaker 1: full of little dimples that are that have a protein
Speaker 1: that's able us sense heat. So they can literally smell
Speaker 1: where the best um vein is to suck blood from.
Speaker 1: And so they find these warm spots on the animal
Speaker 1: where the blood flow is the greatest, and their saliva
Speaker 1: contains an anticoagulant uh, so the blood doesn't clot and
Speaker 1: they can lamp it up more easily, so they don't
Speaker 1: suck blood. They don't use suction. They make a little
Speaker 1: like tiny incision and then lap it up kind of
Speaker 1: like a cat, like a kiddy. Yeah, with wings and
Speaker 1: tiny um. Their tongue has a groove in it that's
Speaker 1: so narrow. The blood travels up the back mouth via
Speaker 1: capillary action, so like a little tiny uh. It's how
Speaker 1: fluids travel through plants as well, or up a paper towel.
Speaker 1: So it's just kind of like soaking up the blood. Um.
Speaker 1: And so the white winged vampire bat is essentially the same,
Speaker 1: just a little different looking. It's got a more tan
Speaker 1: color and its wings are tipped in white. But the
Speaker 1: hairy legged vampire bat is pretty amazing. So it's it's
Speaker 1: adorable to me. It kind of looks like Stitch from
Speaker 1: and Stitch. Can you see that? They're also cute and
Speaker 1: they all have such different kinds of faces. I know,
Speaker 1: this one looks like it's got a little smile. It's adorable.
Speaker 1: It's found in South and Central America, in southern Mexico. UM.
Speaker 1: But instead of feeding on cattle, it feeds on birds. Uh.
Speaker 1: Mostly it feeds on birds in the wild, but it
Speaker 1: also feeds on chickens because there's such an abundance of
Speaker 1: chickens that have been domesticated UM, which I think is
Speaker 1: kind of funny. It's like, you know, the the Cherokee
Speaker 1: and Creek folklore about bats and birds, and like the
Speaker 1: ball game. It's like it's like they their rivals with
Speaker 1: these birds, and they, you know, have kind of antagonistic
Speaker 1: relationship with birds. I think it's funny. They have to
Speaker 1: fight for the air exactly for the air space they've
Speaker 1: established a no fly zone. What is interesting about this bat. Now,
Speaker 1: most vampire bats do not bite humans. They don't um
Speaker 1: or they don't they won't feed on humans. They don't
Speaker 1: bite them intentionally. The bites would be because they're scared. UM. However,
Speaker 1: the hairy legged vampire bat has been recorded with human
Speaker 1: blood in its feces uh. And it's thought that because
Speaker 1: human farmers may live in close contact with chickens, especially
Speaker 1: low income farmers, the bats are are opportunistically feeding on
Speaker 1: the humans um, which is actually very interesting because it
Speaker 1: shows that these bats can kind of adapt to different
Speaker 1: blood types, so from avian blood to mammalian blood. Of course,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna drain you dry of blood um. The
Speaker 1: only concern is the transmission of rabies, which is always
Speaker 1: a concern with any mammalian bite that you get any
Speaker 1: wild animal that bites you. But as we'll soon discuss,
Speaker 1: bats kind of get a bad rap when it comes
Speaker 1: to rabies that's maybe not as deserved. The majority of
Speaker 1: bats do not drink blood. So many species of bats
Speaker 1: are insectivores, but they're also fishing bats who like swooped
Speaker 1: down to the water and like like grab little fish
Speaker 1: and you don't, which is it's pretty adorable. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: There are fruit bats. There are even bats that will
Speaker 1: feed on nectar like hummingbirds. So here's the trumpet nosed bat.
Speaker 1: I love it. He's got a really long snout uh
Speaker 1: and he held basically just like a hummingbird will feed
Speaker 1: on nectar. They're just like little blood hummingbird. That's the
Speaker 1: perfect way to think of. Yeah, they're like if a
Speaker 1: hummingbird got bitten by a vampire and turn to do
Speaker 1: a bat their night night hummingbird night hummingbirds right exactly.
Speaker 1: And the lesser long nose bats, which are found in Arizona,
Speaker 1: New Mexico and Central America. Uh live in arid regions
Speaker 1: and they feed on nectar and in fact, they feed
Speaker 1: so much on flowers they will turn yellow after getting
Speaker 1: covered in pollen. So they're great pollinators to the bats
Speaker 1: are pretty good for the environment. They help keep down
Speaker 1: insect populations, they help pollinate fruit and distribute fruit seeds,
Speaker 1: they help pollinate flowers. Um. They're They're amazing. They're basically
Speaker 1: like birds, Yes, exactly. They There's also so one more
Speaker 1: that that I think you'll like is the palid bat,
Speaker 1: which is from western Canada to Central Mexico, who is
Speaker 1: a desert bat who eats insects off the ground and
Speaker 1: also eats scorpions. Um. And it doesn't actually use echolocation
Speaker 1: as much as it just listens for insects with its
Speaker 1: great hearing. Like how they're all opportunists, like whatever's around
Speaker 1: likely adaptable. Yeah, it's uh. They really are like Batman,
Speaker 1: where they just have like a utility belt of different traits.
Speaker 1: They're cooler than Batman. He does. Bats don't snitch. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: these palid bats, do you actually release a foul odor
Speaker 1: when they're alarmed like a little skunk. That's cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So bats do a lot of diverse things that I
Speaker 1: think people maybe aren't as aware of, like you may
Speaker 1: have heard of like fruit bats, insects eating bats, and
Speaker 1: vampire bats. But their range of behaviors is really incredible.
Speaker 1: They're in extremely diverse. Are they everywhere in the world? Um? Well, no,
Speaker 1: are not, like literally everywhere because like you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think they're in uh climates where it's too cold. Um,
Speaker 1: there's no Arctic bath. There's no that I'm not. There
Speaker 1: are white bats though, so, but they are found in many,
Speaker 1: many different areas, So not just in the Americas. They're
Speaker 1: found in Europe and Africa and South America. Um. And
Speaker 1: we'll actually go through some of the crazier species that
Speaker 1: we find all over the world, and just a little
Speaker 1: bit is our fear of bats? Natural or learned? Researchers
Speaker 1: assessed the attitudes of Slovaki and children towards bats and
Speaker 1: found that many of them were fearful. The researchers found
Speaker 1: a correlation between children's beliefs and myths about bats and
Speaker 1: their fear of them. Unfortunately, another study published in the
Speaker 1: Journal of Evolutionary Psychology found that support for conservation of
Speaker 1: animals is a bit of a beauty contest. The cute
Speaker 1: are the animals, the more likely surveyed people were to
Speaker 1: support conservation efforts, whereas quote unquote ugly species such as
Speaker 1: garter snakes, cave spiders, and ozark big eared bats were
Speaker 1: given the lowest support for environmental protection. Well, that seems
Speaker 1: downright unfair to bats. What is this high school? So
Speaker 1: let's dispel some of these myths and show you how
Speaker 1: beautiful inside and out these creatures are. When we return,
Speaker 1: we'll look at the facts behind the bacts, I mean
Speaker 1: the bats, the bat facts. Now we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about some bat facts. No no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no bat facts. Sometimes human culture intersects with real bad behavior.
Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered why bats are so synonymous with Halloween.
Speaker 1: It could be the creep factor. They come out at night,
Speaker 1: they've vne through soak your blood. Well, only some of
Speaker 1: them and only of your cow basically, but there may
Speaker 1: be another reason. When Irish immigrants fled the potato famine
Speaker 1: came to America, they brought with them the Celtic festival
Speaker 1: of sam Haine, in which celebrants would wear costumes to
Speaker 1: scare off ghosts. According to bat biologists Nate Fuller, these
Speaker 1: emigran who came to the US Northeast would have observed
Speaker 1: clouds of bats around October someone migration paths, some gluttonously
Speaker 1: chowing down on insects before hibernation. So perhaps they associated
Speaker 1: these winged creature with the Halloween celebration simply due to
Speaker 1: the bats normal fall routine, or maybe that's what the
Speaker 1: bats want us to think. So I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: because bats are just so associated with fall. Um. They aren't, like,
Speaker 1: you know, exclusively a fall time creature, but those big
Speaker 1: bat swarms would happen around the fall in the Northeast
Speaker 1: in America. Uh, and it's pretty. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: flocks of birds where it's sort of it's all inspiring
Speaker 1: to see that many bats all flying together. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: saw that for the first time like two years ago.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, in person. Yeah, because we don't really have
Speaker 1: big I mean, maybe we do have them in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: but not as much of the big flocks of them.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's there's gotta be bats in Griffith
Speaker 1: Park there yeah, um, and in the Sequoias yeah. But
Speaker 1: just in a big national park I saw like a
Speaker 1: billion bats. I thought it was park were you on? Um?
Speaker 1: It was a place called building way up in northern California,
Speaker 1: a friend's wedding. But I was like, oh, look at
Speaker 1: that big flock of birds. Ain't no bird and they
Speaker 1: lived under a bridge, it seemed like, which would Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense, makes sense, and that way you can
Speaker 1: hunt sacks and fish if you're a fish bat um,
Speaker 1: And that kind of leads into I asked listeners on
Speaker 1: Twitter for their questions about bats, and this is actually
Speaker 1: question I also have wondered about, and Kevin asks he
Speaker 1: says it's a dumb question, but Kevin, it's not. This
Speaker 1: is a question I also had before researching this, which
Speaker 1: is why do they sleep upside down? I assume because
Speaker 1: cave floors are gross, but that's got to be wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, cave floors under bats are
Speaker 1: kind of too, because they're full of guano, full of guano,
Speaker 1: and in fact, like sometimes if a baby bat falls
Speaker 1: down uh into the guano, like and they can't get up,
Speaker 1: it's they're going to get eaten by insects, which is
Speaker 1: awful um, but that's not actually why they sleep upside down.
Speaker 1: So most bats actually, unlike birds, they can't take off
Speaker 1: from the ground because they birds can build up a
Speaker 1: momentum with their little legs. Bats their wings are tissue
Speaker 1: that uh connects from their hind legs to their fore legs,
Speaker 1: and so that prevents a lot of locomotion. So hanging
Speaker 1: upside down allows them to be in a ready position
Speaker 1: for taking off. By falling and opening their wings, they
Speaker 1: achieve the velocity they need to start flights, so they're
Speaker 1: just basically ready to go. Cameron from Twitter asks when
Speaker 1: they're on the ground, they crawl on their belly and
Speaker 1: use their little hands on the end of their wings.
Speaker 1: So how do they take off and start flying? Do
Speaker 1: they stand on their little legs? I feel like they
Speaker 1: would just keep smacking the ground with their wings and
Speaker 1: not have any room. So this is a really good question.
Speaker 1: And it's true that bats don't normally take off from
Speaker 1: the ground, but there are a few species that can.
Speaker 1: And it's really funny. So bats who have been known
Speaker 1: to take off from the ground evolved the ability to
Speaker 1: kind of scrabble on the ground like the New Zealand
Speaker 1: short tailed bats who walks on the ground in search
Speaker 1: of bugs. Uh, and vampire bats who sneak up on
Speaker 1: hosts by crawling on the ground. And they also need
Speaker 1: to like if a host kind of tries to get
Speaker 1: away from it, they need to be able to kind
Speaker 1: of like scary off, I know. And they really look
Speaker 1: very awkward. It looks like a little they do look
Speaker 1: like vampires because it looks like a little cape right exactly.
Speaker 1: Looks like they keep getting tangled in their capes like
Speaker 1: ed no mode no capes. Um. So Brown University conducted
Speaker 1: a study in which they put bats on treadmills just
Speaker 1: to be mean, I guess, just to make fun of them. Um. Predictably,
Speaker 1: most bats don't do so well. Uh. New Zealand bats
Speaker 1: can comfortably walk, and vampire bats, actually, they found will
Speaker 1: run on their arms. So there's a really interesting video.
Speaker 1: Let me show you and I'll post this video in
Speaker 1: the show notes. But here's a vampire bat running. Oh
Speaker 1: my god's so cool. So I'm just responding to everything
Speaker 1: with it is cool and you can see like it's
Speaker 1: front legs are really bearing most of the brunt of
Speaker 1: the motion. They kind of look like something from Boston Dynamics,
Speaker 1: you know, like how those those interesting robots have, like
Speaker 1: are able to walk really interestingly. Um, I wonder if
Speaker 1: they're going to build like a bat bot. That would
Speaker 1: be cool. I would I would finally support the robot
Speaker 1: uprising if they built a batbot. Speaking of kind of
Speaker 1: interesting bats who have developed a kind of different way
Speaker 1: of locomotion. So Madagascar sucker footed bats look like they
Speaker 1: have a little section cups on their wrists and ankles.
Speaker 1: So here's a picture of them. Oh, doesn't he look
Speaker 1: He looks like is he on a leaf? Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: on a leaf. So they look like they would be
Speaker 1: section cups, but they actually don't use section um. They
Speaker 1: use wet adhesion. So they secrete bodily fluids at the
Speaker 1: paths which stick to the smooth surface of the leaves
Speaker 1: um And so by using these like Spider Man powers
Speaker 1: to stick to leaves, they can avoid being eaten by
Speaker 1: parasites because the parasites can't walk on the leaves as well,
Speaker 1: because they'll just fall off. So it's like if Batman
Speaker 1: and Spiderman had a baby. I'm pretty sure if seemed
Speaker 1: tumbler out of that. Um. So now to the big
Speaker 1: question of the day is do bats carry rabies? So
Speaker 1: Nicole from Twitter asks, I grew up hearing bats had
Speaker 1: a higher chance of carrying rabies, but no one ever
Speaker 1: explained why. So I'd like to know if that's true,
Speaker 1: and if so, why it's a problem for them. So
Speaker 1: that's do carry rabies. That's true, it's not a complete
Speaker 1: myth um, but the threat of rabies from bats is
Speaker 1: kind of overblown. So obviously disclaimer here, if you think
Speaker 1: you've gotten bitten by a bat, you should go to
Speaker 1: a doctor because it's better safe than sorry. Rabies don't
Speaker 1: have uh, don't say it's okay they told us on Creatures.
Speaker 1: Don't write that in your last will and testament. Be like,
Speaker 1: I think I'll be fine because Katie Golden on Creature
Speaker 1: feature said I would be. Um. No, So rabies can
Speaker 1: be treated with a vaccine before you show symptoms, but
Speaker 1: once she starts showing symptoms, it's almost always fatal. Um
Speaker 1: basically too late. So you're I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: general rule if you're ever bitten by a wild animal,
Speaker 1: especially about especially raccoon, especially an unknown dog, it's always
Speaker 1: a safer about to go to the doctor and get
Speaker 1: it checked out because raby shots aren't fun, but they work.
Speaker 1: And never pick up a bat you see on the ground,
Speaker 1: just don't. I mean it's first of all, because bats
Speaker 1: who are on the ground and aren't afraid of you
Speaker 1: and we'll let you pick them up is actually more
Speaker 1: likely to be sick um, and you shouldn't handle them anyways.
Speaker 1: They don't want it. They don't want you to. You
Speaker 1: might want to give it a big old hug, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't want it, respect it's personal space. Um. So,
Speaker 1: according to the c d C, most bats don't have rabies.
Speaker 1: So this idea that all bats you encounter are just
Speaker 1: infested with rabies is not true. Even of bats who
Speaker 1: were suspected of having rabies who seemed sick or weak
Speaker 1: or were easily captured when they tested them, only six
Speaker 1: percent of those tested positive. So a very small number
Speaker 1: of bats end up having rabies. Um. Typically, like I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, bouts who have rabies grow very sick quickly,
Speaker 1: and we'll start to have abnormal behaviors like crawling around
Speaker 1: your humans, crawling around on your lawn, uh, not trying
Speaker 1: to escape when you approach them. So certainly never like
Speaker 1: if a bat seems whacked out of its mind, like
Speaker 1: probably not drunk, Well it could be, I suppose, but
Speaker 1: you don't want to handle it, you don't want to
Speaker 1: pick it up. Um. The reason that bats get such
Speaker 1: a bad reputation for rabies is that they're the main
Speaker 1: culprits of the very very few rabies cases that happen
Speaker 1: in the US every year. So there's really only like
Speaker 1: a handful of rabies cases. We've done a pretty good
Speaker 1: job of basically wiping rabies out in in the US.
Speaker 1: Um there's like one to three cases reported annually. UM.
Speaker 1: And but of these bats are often the culprit. And
Speaker 1: it's not that bats are more likely to it's not
Speaker 1: that there's something about bats that make them more rabid
Speaker 1: or more likely to get rabies. It's that we've been
Speaker 1: treating the problem in dogs, which used to be the
Speaker 1: main carrier of rabies. So dogs, since they get rabies shot,
Speaker 1: are no longer the main vector. And raccoons we've actually
Speaker 1: done a lot of pest control with raccoons that have
Speaker 1: also reduced the threat of rabies from them. And it's
Speaker 1: also a lot easier to notice, like if you're bitten
Speaker 1: by a raccoon, you're gonna know it, whereas when you're
Speaker 1: bitten by a tiny bat, like you might not notice
Speaker 1: it as much. Um only bite and self defense. You. Well,
Speaker 1: if it's the vampire bat, I feel like, yeah, so
Speaker 1: if if a bat is scared, most bats aren't just
Speaker 1: gonna go up to you and bite you, even vampire bats,
Speaker 1: except for the hairy legged vampire bat and even that one.
Speaker 1: Um but uh yeah, most bats aren't looking to bite you.
Speaker 1: Rabies does kind of affect the brain in a weird way,
Speaker 1: and it can make animals more aggressive and more defensive. Um.
Speaker 1: But certainly if you like squeeze a bat, or you
Speaker 1: hold a bat in your hand, you know it's going
Speaker 1: to get scared and it might BITEE squeeze a bat,
Speaker 1: don't It is attempting Because they look like a pet bat.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't recommend them as pets, but I'm sure some
Speaker 1: people have m somebody, um, bats surpassed raccoons as carriers
Speaker 1: just because we haven't really been you know, with raccoons,
Speaker 1: there's been more of a concerted effort of animal control
Speaker 1: um and kind of trying to approach the rabies problem. Um.
Speaker 1: But in the US, you really don't need to fear
Speaker 1: bats and rabies, like just if you're normal everyday life, like, uh,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna they're not gonna try to bite you.
Speaker 1: Most bats aren't going to try to approach you at all.
Speaker 1: If they swoop at you, usually that's they're just looking
Speaker 1: for mosquitoes that are hovering around you. Um, so bats
Speaker 1: aren't really they're really not that scary. In fact, in
Speaker 1: India and Asia, where rabies is far more prevalent and
Speaker 1: kills many more people a year, it's stray dogs who
Speaker 1: are the main culprits because most rays don't have the
Speaker 1: rabies vaccine um. And you know, we don't fear dogs.
Speaker 1: Another misconception about bats is that they're like flying vermin,
Speaker 1: like they're flying mice and rats, some kind of rodent.
Speaker 1: They're not rodents at all. Their chiroptera, which is uh,
Speaker 1: there they have their own group of of species because
Speaker 1: they're there are tons of species of bats. Um. They
Speaker 1: didn't evolve from rodents. Um. They share a common ancestor
Speaker 1: with all placental mammals. UM some kind of like weird
Speaker 1: true like animal that basically humans, whales, everything came from um.
Speaker 1: Their evolutionary history is a little bit of a mystery history.
Speaker 1: Mystery um. Some biologists think they may be related to
Speaker 1: the colugo, which are also known as flying lemurs. They
Speaker 1: aren't lemurs, they're just called that because you know, we
Speaker 1: don't know the difference. Colugos have these like skin flaps
Speaker 1: and they glide around and their insectivorous and their nocturnal.
Speaker 1: So the idea is like, even if they didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: evolve from colugos, they may have evolved from some kind
Speaker 1: of gliding um mammal that eats insects and is nocturnal.
Speaker 1: And then those those those skin flaps just kind of
Speaker 1: developed more and more into wings because that gave them
Speaker 1: greater access to insects and wider distribution of food. Um.
Speaker 1: So this leads into the question whire abouts nocturnal? Uh?
Speaker 1: And why did they evolve flights? So one of the
Speaker 1: theories about bats being nocturnal is that they helped them
Speaker 1: not compete with birds as much. Uh So, Yet again
Speaker 1: those uh the mythology about bats and birds competing like
Speaker 1: is just totally true, like a rom com their their rivals.
Speaker 1: But then they fall yeah, exactly, except for without the
Speaker 1: falling in love, it's right, or maybe I guess like
Speaker 1: a bat version of Twilight where the chicken is what's
Speaker 1: their name and then the bat is Edward, they fall
Speaker 1: in love with the ones they feed on. I guess so, well,
Speaker 1: isn't that the whole thing with Twilight? Like he eats
Speaker 1: the whole thing with vampires in general? Right, they eat
Speaker 1: a lady, but then they look it's a little sexy
Speaker 1: and romantic, right, It's it's like it's like, huh, you
Speaker 1: look so delicious. I'm gonna make an incision on your
Speaker 1: ankle and lap up your blood. It's very intimate, very intimate.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't let just anyone do that. No, I know,
Speaker 1: it's especially with the ankles. My goodness. Back when these
Speaker 1: when these vampire stories were written, basically, yeah, researchers wanted
Speaker 1: to examine this idea that they're nocturnal to avoid predation
Speaker 1: and to avoid competing with birds, and they found that
Speaker 1: the a bat who lives on sal Miguel Island um
Speaker 1: the Azorus noctual, actually does do more hunting during the day,
Speaker 1: and that island has very few insectivorous birds and very
Speaker 1: few predators, so that seems to be some evidence that
Speaker 1: would confirm that idea, um, which I think is it's like,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting that really, because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of insects during the day, there's not necessarily an
Speaker 1: intrinsic advantage to hunting insects at night, except that you're
Speaker 1: you're carving your own little ecological niche where you're just like,
Speaker 1: this is my time to hunt. Is that where the
Speaker 1: echolocation comes in. Yeah, I would guess that as they
Speaker 1: developed flight more echolocation probably became more important because if
Speaker 1: you're flying around, you're gonna gain velocity and slam into
Speaker 1: things if you can't see in the dark. Essentially, uh so, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's it's interesting how it's it's actually kind
Speaker 1: of difficult to check on their evolutionary history because of
Speaker 1: how tiny and delicate their bones are, so it's hard
Speaker 1: to get fossil records. How do you get inside a
Speaker 1: bat ear? How do you get smalllest place? Bats are
Speaker 1: one of the most diverse groups of mammals, with a
Speaker 1: huge variety of species. In fact, it's estimated that one
Speaker 1: fifth of all mammals or bats. Fortunately, bats are well
Speaker 1: pretty chill little dudes, far from being the solitary and
Speaker 1: brooding type like batman, they're more like the Brady Bunch.
Speaker 1: They're often highly social and friendly with one another, even
Speaker 1: roosting with other species with little conflict. They live in
Speaker 1: colonies ranging from a handful of individuals to millions. We
Speaker 1: barely have a grasp on the enormity of these bat societies,
Speaker 1: as there are so many species of bats and such
Speaker 1: a diversity of group behavior, but here are some examples.
Speaker 1: Certain species will groom each other, feed each other, even
Speaker 1: build shelters together, as will soon discuss. In some species,
Speaker 1: colony members will share information about where to find food.
Speaker 1: Some species babysit each other's baby bats called pups baby bats.
Speaker 1: Some bats will even communally nurse pups, sharing the role
Speaker 1: of wet nurse to help other mothers. Though there are
Speaker 1: some minor squabbles among bats, they're surprisingly easy going with
Speaker 1: a few conflicts, and generally they don't appear to have
Speaker 1: hierarchies or dominant structures. So maybe we could learn a
Speaker 1: thing or two about bats and start regurgitating food into
Speaker 1: each other's mouths like a bunch of hippies. When we return,
Speaker 1: I'm going to answer more questions about bats and take
Speaker 1: you on a journey to visit some of the most
Speaker 1: incredible species of bats in the world. Let's go on
Speaker 1: a trip to imagination station. Close your eyes now, think
Speaker 1: of a bat. Don't think too hard, just let the
Speaker 1: first thing pop into your mind. You got it. When
Speaker 1: you think of a bat, what comes to mind? Is
Speaker 1: it a vampire bat, a fruit bat, a tiny bat,
Speaker 1: a big bat. Well, it's going to depend on what
Speaker 1: images of bats you've been exposed to over your life.
Speaker 1: What you're looking at in your brain space is called
Speaker 1: a prototype In cognitive science, this means the image that
Speaker 1: your brain uses to match new visual information to your
Speaker 1: library of concepts. One of the theories is that prototypes
Speaker 1: are a sort of average over the experiences you've had
Speaker 1: with that particular thing. You have a prototype of cat
Speaker 1: made up of an average of cats who've encountered. There
Speaker 1: are some studies that suggest this maybe the correct theory.
Speaker 1: Participants in one study were given a series of composite
Speaker 1: faces which were based on a prototype face, and which
Speaker 1: were designed to, on average, resemble that prototype face. The
Speaker 1: participants were then shown the prototype face and were asked
Speaker 1: if they'd seen that face before and they strongly believed
Speaker 1: they had. So why am I talking about prototype theory
Speaker 1: and bats? Well, I want to shake up your prototype
Speaker 1: of what your brain assumes bats look like. Bats are
Speaker 1: one of the most diverse groups of mammals, with incredible
Speaker 1: physical variety, from tiny bats to huge bats, bats with
Speaker 1: faces that look like trumpets, to bats with faces that
Speaker 1: look like well, kind of testicles. Here's some really crazy bats. Like.
Speaker 1: Even when I was researching this, I didn't I knew
Speaker 1: that there was a huge variety of weird, weird looking bats.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand there I was. There's so many. I
Speaker 1: was not prepared. But a book at Skylight Books that
Speaker 1: was just like a coffee table book of photographs of bats.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's just like every species of bat.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. I look at it all the time.
Speaker 1: Next time you're in, can you show Yeah, I'll bring
Speaker 1: it in. That's how this came about me because I
Speaker 1: was like, I shouldn't buy a book. It was like
Speaker 1: I have to own Oh my god, that isn't I'm
Speaker 1: going to steal that book. Oh you should go get it.
Speaker 1: It's so good. What's it called. It's just called like
Speaker 1: bats bats? You want a bat's book? Uh? So Christian
Speaker 1: with no h asks on Twitter. What are the largest
Speaker 1: and smallest species? So, the largest bats are the flying foxes. Uh.
Speaker 1: These are mega bats. Uh. There's mega bats, which are
Speaker 1: the big bats, and the microbats, which are in little bats.
Speaker 1: So these are mega bats found in Southeast Asia. It's
Speaker 1: a fruit bat that eats fruit, nectar and flowers. U.
Speaker 1: It can't actually echolo hape, but it has very well
Speaker 1: developed eyesight. Um. They weigh up to three and a
Speaker 1: half pounds with a wingspan of up to five ft
Speaker 1: uh and from head to butt it's about a foot long. UM.
Speaker 1: So to give you a sense of what this looks like, Molly,
Speaker 1: here's someone holding one of these guys. Uh. It is
Speaker 1: a big boy. It's a big boy, even though it
Speaker 1: doesn't really weigh that much. Just the wingspan. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: like the size of a kite essentially. Um. And they're
Speaker 1: called flying foxes because they have cute little fox like faces. Uh.
Speaker 1: If they're not related to the fox and then not
Speaker 1: at all. No, not related to foxes, not related to
Speaker 1: rodents their character. The smallest bat in the world is
Speaker 1: the bumblebee bat or also known as kitties hog nos bat,
Speaker 1: and they're really cute. Also, they're one of the world's
Speaker 1: smallest mammals. Now, it's hard to say if they're objectively
Speaker 1: speaking the smallest mammal because like their wingspan is longer
Speaker 1: than some animals. Uh, and they it's it just depends
Speaker 1: on how you define smallest. It's about an inch long
Speaker 1: and ways two grams. Um, that's not even enough. We
Speaker 1: need to get you high. The bumble bees worth they
Speaker 1: have about a six inch wingspan. Uh. They're about the
Speaker 1: size of a human thumb. They live in western Thailand
Speaker 1: and southeast Myan mar Uh. They're vulnerable to being endangered,
Speaker 1: as are actually a lot of these species abouts. Uh.
Speaker 1: They eat spiders and flies, and they have a little
Speaker 1: pig like noses. And here's a picture of one of
Speaker 1: them on a human hand. It's perfect. It's the perfect animal.
Speaker 1: It's so small and tiny. Don't hold at but if
Speaker 1: you had to hold about you want to hold that.
Speaker 1: If you're a scientist, you can you get to hold this.
Speaker 1: Some lucky people are so tiny and small with one finger.
Speaker 1: I know, but you got to be very gentle. Don't write,
Speaker 1: but don't but don't um. So gray long eared bats
Speaker 1: and big eared bats have giant rabbit like ears that
Speaker 1: they kind of look like because they have these little veins.
Speaker 1: They kind of look like you just stuck two big
Speaker 1: leaves on a on a little creature. Um. And then uh,
Speaker 1: there's a boat that has tiny ears but a huge face.
Speaker 1: So the hammer headed bat is found in Africa in
Speaker 1: swamps and forests. Their fruit bats and they're the males
Speaker 1: have huge heads shaped like a hammer. So here's one
Speaker 1: of these guys. So cool. Looks like a raw wilder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like one of those what are those called? Um, the
Speaker 1: dogs that have the snouts flat face. It looks like
Speaker 1: spuds mackenzie, Buds Mackenzie. That's that's what. That's spuds mackenzie.
Speaker 1: But it's a bat. It's a it's a bull terrier, right,
Speaker 1: is that what Spuds Mackenzie has? I think so that
Speaker 1: sounds right for a flatty face. Yeah, it's a bull terrier.
Speaker 1: It looks like a bull terrier and a bat. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And actually, so females don't have that big big snaws. Um,
Speaker 1: males use their huge heads to make loud honks to
Speaker 1: attract females. Oh yeah, that's spuds, I'm looking at it,
Speaker 1: Spuds Mackenzie. It spuds the bat. So I'm gonna play
Speaker 1: a clip for you of bat's making the noise. It
Speaker 1: sounds like it sounds like a space battle. It sounds
Speaker 1: so cool. It sounds like it sounds like Star Trek
Speaker 1: space battles. To me, I would like to listen to
Speaker 1: that for just hours. Just bat a smr now onto
Speaker 1: A really cute that. One of my favorite bats is
Speaker 1: the Honduran white bat, which are just a little marshmallows
Speaker 1: with wings. Uh. This is the bat that would if
Speaker 1: you were gonna imagine what an Arctic bat might look like,
Speaker 1: exactly this little dude exactly. So they're little white bats.
Speaker 1: They look like cotton balls. They have yellow ears and
Speaker 1: noses due to carotenoids like what's found in flamingos, carrots,
Speaker 1: leaves and uh oranges. Uh and you and I and
Speaker 1: you and I, yeah, to a certain extent, but we don't. Uh,
Speaker 1: we don't. The density of carotenoids and bats is really interesting.
Speaker 1: And how like densely they like collected around their nose
Speaker 1: and ears, which is usually not seen in mammals. So
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. Um, it's kind of like how so
Speaker 1: like flamingos, they get the carotenoids from their diet and
Speaker 1: they their wings become very pink and colorful and so
Speaker 1: but that kind of thing unless I mean, we can
Speaker 1: turn orange if we eat this insane amounts of carrots um.
Speaker 1: But the bats do it with very little effort. It
Speaker 1: eats fruit, mainly figs, And they make tints out of leaves.
Speaker 1: So they actually build tints by cutting through the eyes
Speaker 1: of the leaf and folding it over like it's so cool.
Speaker 1: And they live in it's a team effort to so
Speaker 1: they each tent contains like from one to about a
Speaker 1: dozen bats, and they'll all work on the tent together. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They're also communal. That's what I love about them. They're friendly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they all snuggle for the snuggle warmth. Just imagine
Speaker 1: a bunch of little marshmallows with with yellow ears and
Speaker 1: a nose and wings, just all snuggling together in a leaf.
Speaker 1: It's like something from Miyazaki my neighbor Totoro. Yeah, they're cute,
Speaker 1: they're useful, they help each other. They don't have a hierarchy,
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't get better than that. Yeah, they're really
Speaker 1: like kind of got a utopian society to live in caves.
Speaker 1: I think I just want all these things. I kind
Speaker 1: of want to be a bat. So these tents protect
Speaker 1: them from weather and predators. But imagine you didn't need
Speaker 1: to build a tent it that you could make a
Speaker 1: tint out of your own body. So here's a fun
Speaker 1: imagination station. Imagine you had a sleep mask built into
Speaker 1: your neck flaps, like your neck skin, that you could
Speaker 1: just pull up and sleep on planes. It's kind of
Speaker 1: scary to imagine that, but I'm doing it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's kind of like it's what I imagine, like
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, does you know, like just kind of turns
Speaker 1: into his neck. Um. Yeah. It would be cool if
Speaker 1: there was more, if we had more extremity and human faces.
Speaker 1: And I'd like more flaps, honestly, like more flaps too,
Speaker 1: because I hate flying on planes and the lights. Someone
Speaker 1: opens the window, which you shouldn't do. I've seen clouds.
Speaker 1: I don't care about clouds. You're to sleep. I'm there
Speaker 1: to sleep. I'm there to to try to force myself
Speaker 1: to sleep and not think about how there are clouds
Speaker 1: all around us and not see the beautiful vistas. That's
Speaker 1: not important to me. But your skin flaps that's what
Speaker 1: my skin flaps for. And it'd be such a strong
Speaker 1: social signal to like someone's talking your ear off and
Speaker 1: you just slowly start to like pull your skin flap
Speaker 1: up up. I also really empathize with um. Well, first,
Speaker 1: let me say that there are there is a bat
Speaker 1: that can do this, and they're called wrinkle faced bats.
Speaker 1: And personally, I can't actually sleep unless I pull like
Speaker 1: my shirt up over my chin. I have no idea why.
Speaker 1: It's almost like I'm afraid someone's gonna like come in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and stab me in the
Speaker 1: next I've got to like protect my neck with my
Speaker 1: the blanket. Really yeah, I like to be tucked in.
Speaker 1: I like to be like covered by a leaf, you know. Yeah, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just that security of like I am covering up
Speaker 1: my face with it's really hot that I can't do anything,
Speaker 1: which happened. I have to do it or I can't sleep.
Speaker 1: It's very bizarre. Maybe like part bat. Maybe I was
Speaker 1: bitten by radioactive bat and this is the crappy superpower
Speaker 1: that I got. I was gonna say, we're both really
Speaker 1: pale red hats. There's a reason we think bats are
Speaker 1: cool because it can only come out at night, because
Speaker 1: we only come out at night exactly. Um So, wrinkle
Speaker 1: face beats are found in Central America. As their name suggests,
Speaker 1: they have a very wrinkly face. Here's a picture. They
Speaker 1: look like one of those kind of mohawk look a
Speaker 1: little bit like Look, I don't want to get naughty
Speaker 1: on the show, but they look a little bit like
Speaker 1: a ball sack. Yeah, I mean they kind of also
Speaker 1: look like a waffle, a waffle, right as skin waffle,
Speaker 1: flesh waffle. Um. So, males have a flap of skin
Speaker 1: they can pull down and use as a face mask
Speaker 1: while they're sleeping. Um. And they also have mouth pouches
Speaker 1: to store fruit in um, which is just I love
Speaker 1: seeing imagining this little wrinkly face just distended over like
Speaker 1: a grape, like a like a hamster. Where are those
Speaker 1: ones the mouth patches, they're like right on his little cheeks,
Speaker 1: like right there. I don't know. I meant, where the
Speaker 1: where do those bats? Uh? Where do those bats come from? Oh?
Speaker 1: They're in Central America. I wonder why that didn't become
Speaker 1: more of a thing with all the other bats having
Speaker 1: like a skin flap. Yeah, it's a good question. Just
Speaker 1: their faces seem like such a great here's bio diversity,
Speaker 1: let's try everything. It's like, you know that like Dr.
Speaker 1: Seuss thing, this the need thing, like in the Lorex
Speaker 1: where it's like a it's a basically a piece of
Speaker 1: fabric that can be turned into many different articles of
Speaker 1: clothing and like a purse or a shirt or sweater. Um, like,
Speaker 1: that's how I feel like these bat faces are. It's
Speaker 1: like it can be an eyemask, can be like a
Speaker 1: storage thing. It can just look really beautiful. They're like plants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do looktle bit like an orchid, don't they They
Speaker 1: really do, especially some of the nose spikes like a fleshy,
Speaker 1: fleshy orchid. Yeah. In fact, a lot of bats are
Speaker 1: called a leaf nose bats because their nose look like
Speaker 1: little leaves. They are. They're really beautiful to me. They
Speaker 1: look like flowers. Um, there's those urns take goal drawings
Speaker 1: of bat Yes, I have always left. Yes, I'll probably
Speaker 1: put that online. The diversity of bad faces. Yeah there,
Speaker 1: it's it's really incredible. Um. And speaking of awesome looking bats,
Speaker 1: here's a bat with a mohawk. Oh yeah, this is
Speaker 1: called a Chapman's bat. It's found in Central and South America.
Speaker 1: They're insectivores. It's a little bat with a big hair do.
Speaker 1: Um looks like Wendy Oh Williams. I don't know. She's
Speaker 1: a she likes to She's like a cool punk lady
Speaker 1: who blows stuff up and hammers and mohawk. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: it does look very punk rock. It's got it's it's
Speaker 1: literally like it's the closest thing I've seen to like
Speaker 1: a punk rock mohawk in a mammal. Really yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: it absolutely looks like a punk mohawk. Um. It's probably
Speaker 1: for sexual selection, since they're more prominent in males. It's
Speaker 1: probably soft, less spiky than I realized. Stop making me
Speaker 1: want to pet. That's all I can do is talk
Speaker 1: about I just want to pet a bat and not
Speaker 1: get babies. Yeah. Um, so Christian with an h asks?
Speaker 1: Um do bats pea or crap on themselves when sleeping?
Speaker 1: How do they keep babies safe while upside down? Do
Speaker 1: they have protection against pork air quality and caves? So
Speaker 1: this is a good question. Um, when bats are roosting,
Speaker 1: they don't poop and pee on themselves. They actually will
Speaker 1: flip over to go to the bathroom. Um, and so
Speaker 1: you have. I mean they'll when they're flying, they'll poo
Speaker 1: and pee just in the air, just like birds do.
Speaker 1: But um, like when they're in their caves, they don't
Speaker 1: want to they don't poop on themselves. That's the cave floor,
Speaker 1: that's for the floor. So they'll they'll do a little
Speaker 1: somersaults so they can poop. They do give birth to
Speaker 1: babies upside down though, and the mother has to kind
Speaker 1: of catch the baby on the way right. And then
Speaker 1: they drop them sometimes and they aren't allowed to get them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if they draw a sad documentary where that happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if they dropped them, I think it's just like really
Speaker 1: difficult to retrieve them. Um and so and like they
Speaker 1: do get like a baby that gets dropped is not
Speaker 1: gonna make it generally. Um so high stakes high stakes
Speaker 1: game of catch here circus performers. It's like if we
Speaker 1: shot a baby out like when giving birth and the
Speaker 1: doctor just had to catch it or like we had
Speaker 1: to catch back to the ball game. Um, the baby
Speaker 1: will quickly start to learn to cling to its mother's belly. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in some species, the mother can fly with a
Speaker 1: baby clinging to her stomach. Like instill a luna, remember
Speaker 1: that book, and then like they get attacked by a
Speaker 1: hawk or something and still a little for it. You
Speaker 1: get lost from her mom, but then she's not abandoned,
Speaker 1: but then she gets raised by birds and they're like,
Speaker 1: why are you so strange? And it turns out she
Speaker 1: wasn't strange, She was a bat all along, all along.
Speaker 1: Uh So. The other part of the question is about
Speaker 1: um poor air quality in caves, and actually this is
Speaker 1: a little bit of a misconception. Generally speaking, air qualitying
Speaker 1: caves is fine. There are some exceptions, obviously, um, but
Speaker 1: natural caves typically have a good amount of oxygen and
Speaker 1: air mixing uh and they rarely have dangerous gases, although
Speaker 1: there are some caves that do, like have high concentrations
Speaker 1: of c O two. So don't just like go don't
Speaker 1: pick up a bat, squeeze it and go marching into
Speaker 1: a cave and be like Katie told me to, don't
Speaker 1: go in a cave where bats are and up a
Speaker 1: bat right, and like shove your face and all their
Speaker 1: guana and such um and the the things you really
Speaker 1: have to look out for our minds and minds are
Speaker 1: more dangerous because they don't have Unlike a natural cave,
Speaker 1: they don't have as much air circulation. There's usually like
Speaker 1: one way in and one way out, so that's how
Speaker 1: dangerous gases can often build up in mines um. Bat
Speaker 1: caves do offer a little extra gassiness because bat guano
Speaker 1: does give off ammonia gas um. I'm not exactly sure
Speaker 1: how bats cope with the strong ammonia. My guess is
Speaker 1: that air circulation in the caves, the humidity, or their
Speaker 1: distance from the guano is probably enough to keep it
Speaker 1: from bothering them. But if there's any bat biologists or
Speaker 1: caveologists spollnchologists out there, uh, sim me a message, tell
Speaker 1: me how wrong I am. Here's another question about bats.
Speaker 1: Doc Garb asks, would you rather fight one batman size
Speaker 1: bat or twenty bats sized batmans? Yes? Um, So obviously
Speaker 1: that depends on the species of bats, Like if the
Speaker 1: batman's were the size of the bumblebee bat, definitely twenty
Speaker 1: bat sized batman's um. And honestly, though the real answer
Speaker 1: to this question is, uh, fighting a batman size bat
Speaker 1: because the bat isn't gonna want to fight me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I see a big bat, we're gonna be friends. Friends,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be friends. I'll be like, hey, can I
Speaker 1: groom you can? You can throw up in each other's mouths.
Speaker 1: Would you like to throw up in my mouth? I'll
Speaker 1: throw up in your mouth if you throw up in
Speaker 1: the back and forth exactly. Um uh. And similar to this,
Speaker 1: Waffles asks if Batman was bitten by radioactive bat, what
Speaker 1: powers would he likely have? Uh? Not including cancer um,
Speaker 1: which I guess is a concern with radioactivity. Um so uh,
Speaker 1: if he was bitten, it again depends on the species
Speaker 1: of bats. So if he was bitten by a vampire bat,
Speaker 1: he'd be able to use his nose as a heat
Speaker 1: detection system, so he could like maybe put his nose
Speaker 1: on a wall. I'm imagining like uldtrap powers. Like this
Speaker 1: is not something an actual vampire bat can do, but
Speaker 1: maybe a radioactive vampire bat could do. Like maybe he
Speaker 1: could like put his nose against a wall and like
Speaker 1: use that as heat sensors to see where all the
Speaker 1: criminals are. His bite would also contain an anticoaculant, so
Speaker 1: you know, he'd just like bite the joker and he'd
Speaker 1: bleed out. I guess he could also, as we've talked about,
Speaker 1: vomit up blood to feed Robin, to keep him nourished.
Speaker 1: He's a grown boy. He's a grown boy, wonder and
Speaker 1: he needs to make Batman like a little cooler. It
Speaker 1: makes him so much better. And he he doesn't believe
Speaker 1: in hierarchies, right, so he wouldn't be first of all,
Speaker 1: he'd be a batman. He wouldn't be Batman. He would
Speaker 1: just be like, hey, I'm man bat I'm going to
Speaker 1: give all my wealth away. Um, I'm gonna bite people
Speaker 1: who are bad and vomit blood up into children's mouths
Speaker 1: and echo and echolocate. A true hero um. He'd also
Speaker 1: have exquisite hearing. He could probably hear flies having sex,
Speaker 1: probably hear everyone having sex, which sounds like a horrible nightmare.
Speaker 1: Bat's actually will listen for um flies as they're having sex.
Speaker 1: They make like sexual buzzing as flies have sex. And
Speaker 1: then if a bat hears that, they know how to
Speaker 1: target them and eat them, and they'll just eat both
Speaker 1: of them. Yes, so kind of kind of like both
Speaker 1: a messiah and a horror movie villain who would just
Speaker 1: eat people who have sex. And if he was bitten
Speaker 1: by the sucker footed bat, he would be able to
Speaker 1: scale buildings like Spider Man. So you know, as long
Speaker 1: as he's on our side, he'd be great. But if
Speaker 1: just like we'd have to be a chaste, equitable society.
Speaker 1: Matt asks, is there a way to attract bats to
Speaker 1: come live in the bat houses we've put up? And
Speaker 1: a related question from Lady friend is bat addicts. I
Speaker 1: should get some, right, So this is kind of what
Speaker 1: we were talking about before. Um, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you want bats in your attic, especially because they won't
Speaker 1: they won't destroy the attic at all. They don't choose
Speaker 1: through things, but they'll they'll poop a lot, And I
Speaker 1: don't know if you want poop there. Um like guana
Speaker 1: like used to make dynamite? Also, is it? I didn't
Speaker 1: know that there's something it's used for, something that makes
Speaker 1: it really valuable. I believe it involves explosive. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: it's because dried back wando consists largely of saltpeter, potassium
Speaker 1: nitrate explosive poop. The Confederates used it after their supplies
Speaker 1: were cut off. Oh my gosh, the Civil War. I
Speaker 1: wonder what would happen if you gave like a bat chipotle?
Speaker 1: Would that just be like an H bomb? Of that's
Speaker 1: pretty incredible. Maybe you don't want bats in your attic.
Speaker 1: I don't think it'll probably not unless you probably might
Speaker 1: lead to some confederates, which the FBI, raiding your house. Like,
Speaker 1: what's with all this explosions. It's explosive material. Um. But
Speaker 1: bat houses are a great idea. Um So, uh, if
Speaker 1: you want bats to take up residents in a bat house,
Speaker 1: it's a location, location, location, according to back Conservation International,
Speaker 1: So lures don't really work to attract them to the house. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't like try to force a bat into a else.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't pick up a bat and like place it
Speaker 1: in a house. Don't pick up bats. They're adorable. I
Speaker 1: know you want to, Just don't touch them. Don't touch them. Instead,
Speaker 1: they recommend making the house appealing by placing it against
Speaker 1: a wall or solid wood structure rather than a pull
Speaker 1: to regulate the temperature, as the bats will prefer warmer houses,
Speaker 1: but not too hot, so around eighty two a hundred
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit in the summer. Um. By choosing where the
Speaker 1: home is in the sun or shade, and what color
Speaker 1: you paint it, you can control the temperature. And I'll
Speaker 1: put up a link to the Uh, there's a bad
Speaker 1: conservation um worksheet about like how to how to make
Speaker 1: a cool bath house decoy decoy asks. I've always heard
Speaker 1: baths de flat show and kind of lingus to each
Speaker 1: other a lot. Is there any truth to that? Yes
Speaker 1: there is, so we your point for bath not their
Speaker 1: point for bats. So I talked about this on the
Speaker 1: Worst at Sex Awards episode, But biologists found that female
Speaker 1: Chinese fruit baths indeed perform fully show during mating copulations. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's thought that this is used to help encourage the
Speaker 1: males to keep going so successful insemination occurs. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like a little bit of an auDA boy, like
Speaker 1: you're doing a good job, keep on going. It's got
Speaker 1: to be they're probably doing it like really having to
Speaker 1: crunch those abdominal muscles. You gotta put those wings out
Speaker 1: of the way. And I bet you're thinking, well, that's great.
Speaker 1: But do male bats perform kind of lingus um? And
Speaker 1: in fact they do so. Researchers have found that male
Speaker 1: Indian flying foxes will perform oral sex on females, which
Speaker 1: I think is great. I mean, we can learn so
Speaker 1: much from baths. They're basically the best animal. I like
Speaker 1: to be a bat, right, Yeah, I mean they have
Speaker 1: they have equitable societies, they have welfare, they practice uh
Speaker 1: sex on each other, and they're cute and exactly. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And here's another point in the favor of bats. If
Speaker 1: you take a video of bats hanging upside down, flip
Speaker 1: it and put some music to it, they look like
Speaker 1: they're dancing. So I'll post this. I'll post this video.
Speaker 1: So cute they definitely they look it's a little trio
Speaker 1: of bats, and they look like they're dancing because they're
Speaker 1: just kind of like, I guess breathing. Uh and uh.
Speaker 1: I can't play the video on podcast. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: it's got but if you can imagine the cutest, funniest
Speaker 1: thing you've ever seen, right, look at the leg where
Speaker 1: like look at the lego here like looks like he's
Speaker 1: tap dancing. Oh it's so cool. It's hilarious. So you
Speaker 1: got any got any more stories about bats? Well? I
Speaker 1: haven't had that much experience with them personally, so I've
Speaker 1: only really seen them in other places. But now I
Speaker 1: want to find the ones in l A. Yeah, see
Speaker 1: if we can track them down. I did see when
Speaker 1: I was in Las Vegas a couple of years ago. Um,
Speaker 1: the bats congregate around the lux or pyramid really because
Speaker 1: there's so many because it's a big light. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they shoot a big light out of the top of
Speaker 1: the pyramid own bugs, right. Yeah, So there's so many
Speaker 1: bugs that it's like a great place for bats to
Speaker 1: the desert. Bats hang out there and you can see
Speaker 1: like a cool big spotlight for the It's the best
Speaker 1: show in town. That's awesome. I'm actually going to Vegas
Speaker 1: and all, oh, we'll check it out. I'm gonna check
Speaker 1: out the bats. Probably not going to gamble at all,
Speaker 1: going to spend all my time looking about I can.
Speaker 1: I would also love to recommend the Atomic Bomb Testing
Speaker 1: Museum in Las Vegas is really cool. Really Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like a Smithsonian museum about all the atomic bomb stuff
Speaker 1: and it's really scary and the Bombaguana No, but it's
Speaker 1: funny because it's like it all happens out in the desert.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm sure it was in some places
Speaker 1: where bats are leaving the guano around something, they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: just another explosion, just another way one of those dead
Speaker 1: theert bats that can crawl on the ground just like oh,
Speaker 1: geez back to the pyramid. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today. Thank you. So you're you're part of
Speaker 1: a podcast called Nightcall. I've had tests on that. I
Speaker 1: get Emily for the tri I know. Uh so, can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about your podcast? Nightcall is
Speaker 1: a podcast about sort of the occult and as Terrika,
Speaker 1: you talk about UFOs and ghosts and stuff like that
Speaker 1: a lot, but we also talk about animals, which is
Speaker 1: why this is a great pod to cross over on
Speaker 1: because we also talk about uh, leeches specifically recently um
Speaker 1: and sometimes bath. So you have to come on Night
Speaker 1: Call next. I'd love to be on Nightcall. I will
Speaker 1: talk to you about all sorts of creepy animals. Having
Speaker 1: an animal expert on a call is like something I've
Speaker 1: always dreamed of in my life, just having someone who
Speaker 1: I can ask the kind of questions that people would
Speaker 1: ask you, right, like is Bigfoot made out of eels?
Speaker 1: And the answer, I don't know, the science of nobody
Speaker 1: knows yet. Can people find you on social media? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at Molly Lambert and
Speaker 1: other places. Yeah. Yeah, you can find us on the internet.
Speaker 1: Uh Creature feature pod dot Com Creature feature pod on Instagram,
Speaker 1: Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. F e a T not
Speaker 1: f ET That'll bring you somewhere very different. Uh. You
Speaker 1: can find me at Katie Golden. I'm also at pro
Speaker 1: bird Rights uh, and I urge you to ignore all
Speaker 1: of the propaganda in this episode about being pro bat
Speaker 1: rights because in fact, birds are the superior creature. Oh
Speaker 1: I disagree. Somebody help me on being controlled by birds anyways.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: the pod, please leave our review, subscribe, press all the
Speaker 1: numerous buttons available to you below the episode, and send
Speaker 1: Katie pictures of your bath houses. That would be wonderful
Speaker 1: Send me pictures of bath houses. Dick Dix Chevertine's anything
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