Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Bolgabam. Here. You may have seen
Speaker 1: one bat, but you most definitely haven't seen them all.
Speaker 1: That's because after rodents, bats make up the second largest
Speaker 1: order of animals. There are over nine hundred different species
Speaker 1: fluttering around, from a bumblebee sized hog nosed bat to
Speaker 1: gentle giants with wingspans of five feet that's one and
Speaker 1: a half meters or longer. Most bats eat insects, often
Speaker 1: in copious amounts, and then you've got your big game hunters,
Speaker 1: bats who have evolved strong enough jaw muscles that they
Speaker 1: can kill off vertebrate prey such as fish, lizards, or birds.
Speaker 1: And of course, the blood drinking vampire bats from Central
Speaker 1: and South America need no introduction. But not all bats
Speaker 1: are carnivores or vampiric. About three hundred species eat fruits
Speaker 1: and other plants to survive, which works out great for
Speaker 1: the rest of us because those flying creatures really help
Speaker 1: the environment. One of the most important families of bats
Speaker 1: is the terra Potidae, also known as the Old World
Speaker 1: fruit bats. They hang out in tropical and subtropical parts
Speaker 1: of Africa, Eurasia, Australia and many Pacific islands. I remember
Speaker 1: those gentle giants we mentioned above. Those would be the
Speaker 1: flying foxes enormous terra pottids, who represent the largest bats
Speaker 1: alive today. A species called the giant golden crowned flying
Speaker 1: fox can weigh two and a half pounds that's over
Speaker 1: a kilo. It's a fruit eater of frugivore with a
Speaker 1: taste for fix for the article This episode is based
Speaker 1: on How Stuff Works. Spoke by email with biologist Liam McGuire,
Speaker 1: an assistant professor at Texas Tech University. He said, Tea
Speaker 1: pottids eat primarily fruit and nectar. For example, nectar from
Speaker 1: the flowers of eucalypt trees is a very important source
Speaker 1: for several species of flying foxes in Australia. But terrapottic
Speaker 1: diets can also include other plants, pollen, leaves, and sometimes insects.
Speaker 1: And now you might be thinking that the name Old
Speaker 1: World fruit bats implies the existence of New World fruit bats,
Speaker 1: and indeed the Americas have no shortage of these creatures.
Speaker 1: The Philus domide is another large bat family, a one
Speaker 1: that's distributed across the neo tropics of North, South and
Speaker 1: Central America plus the Caribbean. While many species are committed
Speaker 1: insect hunters, dozens of these animals incorporate plant matter into
Speaker 1: their diets, and, depending on the batting question, fruits, nectars, pollen,
Speaker 1: or seeds may be fair game. Housta Works also spoke
Speaker 1: by email with Neberico Giannini, a mammologist and research associate
Speaker 1: at the American Museum of Natural History. He said, frygivorous
Speaker 1: bats in both the Old World and the New World
Speaker 1: tropics eat a variety of fruits that tend to be scented,
Speaker 1: relatively large, green to yellow in color, and exposed away
Speaker 1: from branches and leaves. Bananas, mangoes, figs, and bates are
Speaker 1: all favorite foods for fruit bats. The Old World terra
Speaker 1: pottids alone feed on more than one thousand different plant species,
Speaker 1: and most of these sevent grow fruits that the bats
Speaker 1: like to consume. Other plants may attract terra potted visitors
Speaker 1: because of their flowers, leaves, nectars, and sap shoots and
Speaker 1: tree bark are fair game as well. Usually the relationship
Speaker 1: has mutual benefits. Seeds swallowed by fruit bats get released
Speaker 1: somewhere else when the animals poop. According to study, Tropical
Speaker 1: bats in some parts of Mexico distribute more seeds in
Speaker 1: this manner than fruit eating birds do, and after a
Speaker 1: forested places devastated by wildfires, droughts, or human activities, fruit
Speaker 1: bats help it bounce back. A research suggests that a
Speaker 1: colony of a hundred and fifty two thousand African straw
Speaker 1: colored fruit bats can distribute more than three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: seeds in one night. This could be enough to get
Speaker 1: the reforestation process started across some two thousand acres or
Speaker 1: eight hundred hectares of land. Flower and nectar eaters do
Speaker 1: their part as well. The bats are pollinators for upward
Speaker 1: of five hundred thirty types of plants such as palsa trees, bananas,
Speaker 1: and assorted cactuses. And then we have agave, a key
Speaker 1: ingredient in tequila. A genus of migratory bats eat the
Speaker 1: nectar from their flowers. In the process, these mammals spread
Speaker 1: a gave a pollen around cross fertilizing the plants as
Speaker 1: they go. Worldwide, roughly a thousand species of bats find
Speaker 1: food and avoid obstacles easing echolocation. Echolocation is a sound
Speaker 1: based navigating strategy. The process starts when an animal releases
Speaker 1: high frequency sound waves through the nose or mouth, and
Speaker 1: by carefully listening for an echo, the sender can decipher
Speaker 1: a lot about its surroundings. That's how some predatory bats
Speaker 1: track down moths and mosquitoes in pitch black darkness. Unlike insects,
Speaker 1: though a piece of fruit can't fly away regardless, Ginnini said,
Speaker 1: all New World frugivorous bats use echolocation. This type is
Speaker 1: called sophisticated laryngeal echolocation, and it's essentially a laryngeal call
Speaker 1: emitted through the nostrils and modulated using a nose leaf.
Speaker 1: Nose leaves are weird structures found around the nasal openings
Speaker 1: of many bat species. Meanwhile, most Old World fruit bats
Speaker 1: do not echolocate, with a few interesting exceptions, McGuire explained.
Speaker 1: Among the Terrapodidae, there are bats that echolocate by clicking
Speaker 1: their tongues. This mode of echolocation has often been considered primitive,
Speaker 1: but studies have shown that their tongue click echolocation is
Speaker 1: quite sophisticated. It. In addition, some Old World fruit bats
Speaker 1: make clicking noises with their wings. It's not at a
Speaker 1: location in the traditional sense, but echoes from those clicks
Speaker 1: help the animals get around to aid in their quest
Speaker 1: for vegetarian goodies. Many fruit bats have evolved a keen
Speaker 1: sense of smell of flying foxes possess great eyesight as well,
Speaker 1: so much for the old myth that bats are blind.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article fruit bats are
Speaker 1: the best pollinators and suppliers of tequila on House to
Speaker 1: works dot Com, written by Mark Vancini. A brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is production of by Heart Radio and partnership with how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: Four more podcasts from my heart Radio visit the heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.