Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. I didn't know we were podcasting about dolphin.
Speaker 1: That was my bat. Oh I thought it was a dolphin. No, No,
Speaker 1: that was a bat. Well, then why are you wearing
Speaker 1: your dolphin running shorts? That has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: bats and everything to do with Dan Marino. They probably
Speaker 1: still have those dolphin running shorts. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Remember the little uh like real runners. They still wear
Speaker 1: those shorts or maybe it's all spandex now like super tight,
Speaker 1: but they used to be just like a little whispy
Speaker 1: piece of but they were called dolphins. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that was the brand. I wasn't familiar remember, but you know,
Speaker 1: things were you know, the right gust of wind could
Speaker 1: reveal lots of things. I know you're talking about, like
Speaker 1: short shorts, real flimsy one real satiny, flimsy, whispy. But
Speaker 1: and I think I think they were dolphin running shorts.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this this podcast is not sponsored
Speaker 1: by Dolphin running shorts. It's sponsored by the Bats of America.
Speaker 1: That's right, which I always have liked bats. But after
Speaker 1: reading this, I'm so much more in love with bats.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're need animals. It's amazing and not just
Speaker 1: like I learned a lot of stuff. I kind of
Speaker 1: knew about the echo location and stuff like that. Yeah. Actually,
Speaker 1: here's here's my impression of a bat echo locating. Good huh,
Speaker 1: because humans can't hear it. That's right, I just did it.
Speaker 1: Really great, very nice, chuck. If you are on the fence,
Speaker 1: well not you, because you just stated that you're over
Speaker 1: the fence clearly in the bat yard. Pro bat, pro
Speaker 1: bat me too. Um. They never did anything to anybody
Speaker 1: on purpose, from some of them sucking your blood while
Speaker 1: you sleep. Aside from that super rare um, bats seem
Speaker 1: to be pretty great animals. And if you're on the
Speaker 1: fence about bats and you want to go over to
Speaker 1: the pro bat side, go on to YouTube and type
Speaker 1: in bat eating a banana. It's very cute. It's adorable.
Speaker 1: There's also baby bat burrito videos. They're wrapped up in
Speaker 1: a blanket out of tortilla. There's a lot of cute
Speaker 1: bat videos out there because there's a lot of cute
Speaker 1: bats there. Um. And you might say, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: I've seen bats they are as ugly as pure evil gets.
Speaker 1: You're talking about what are called micro bats, the ones
Speaker 1: with the crazy nostrils that actually make un gag. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they're cute too. I mean I get it
Speaker 1: because they definitely look like uh, literary ghouls and fiends.
Speaker 1: But um, which makes you wonder. I wonder if fiends
Speaker 1: and ghouls were modeled after those types of bats. Oh
Speaker 1: I'm sure, Okay, I didn't realize it was so obvious.
Speaker 1: Well no, I mean it would have to, because that's
Speaker 1: a real thing, and they look so much alike. Maybe
Speaker 1: no one had seemed a bat and then they make
Speaker 1: gargos are like, what a coincidence? Or maybe a bat
Speaker 1: just died at the feet of an artist one day
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh man, I gotta cast this in
Speaker 1: clay and put it on my front doorstep. I know
Speaker 1: what you were driving at. Though. They are cute in
Speaker 1: their own really weird uncanny way. Yeah so, but but
Speaker 1: nothing like the flying fox. Those are legit cute. No,
Speaker 1: and actually this article needs to be updated. Man, So
Speaker 1: bats are there's actually bats are the only flying mammals.
Speaker 1: We should say, they're very unique animals. Only flying mammals wait,
Speaker 1: what about the penguin non flying and a bird. It
Speaker 1: didn't even come close. Bats are mammals um and they're
Speaker 1: more closely related to humans than say, like the fox
Speaker 1: or the rat or whatever that they're they're frequently described
Speaker 1: as being the flying version of um. And there's I
Speaker 1: think something like species of bats species, and they all
Speaker 1: belong to the order um Chiroptera, which means hand wing,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to. And then bats typically are subdivided
Speaker 1: into two sub orders, and it used to be mega
Speaker 1: chi rop Tera and micro Chiropa. No, because science specifically
Speaker 1: like taxonomy, used to be kind of dumb. It was
Speaker 1: just based on appearance. And then once the field of
Speaker 1: genetics came along, they started like genetically testing things and
Speaker 1: realizing that it's not a really good way to categorize
Speaker 1: things like this skunk looks like a raccoon, but they're
Speaker 1: not the same thing, right, so maybe they shouldn't be
Speaker 1: in the same order any longer. This is the case
Speaker 1: with bats, so um it used to be based on
Speaker 1: their size megabats and microbats or megachira chirop Tera and
Speaker 1: micro chirop Tara. Now, because of genetic testing, some of
Speaker 1: the very small bats are now in the megabat order,
Speaker 1: so order and vice versa, but those are still sub
Speaker 1: orders they are, but they renamed him to megabats and
Speaker 1: micro bats. But so, for example, the long tongue fruit
Speaker 1: bat is considered a megabat, but it's wingspan is only
Speaker 1: about ten inches. It's a little thing. Whereas if you
Speaker 1: look at the flying fox or the fruit bat uh Asia,
Speaker 1: Africa and Australia, those things are adorable and they are huge,
Speaker 1: like six ft wingspans on some of these bad boys.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I think they're gorgeous. I know. I
Speaker 1: think it's the wing just terrifies people. Yeah, because it
Speaker 1: looks like a cute, little fuzzy fox and then he
Speaker 1: goes right, it envelops you and takes you to Well,
Speaker 1: that's what evokes I think is uh is a cape
Speaker 1: that something would wrap around you and suck your blood? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a vampire. Oh I wonder if vampires were invented
Speaker 1: independently a bat? Uh? Uh? The what is the cute
Speaker 1: little guy that beat? Yeah? I posted a picture that
Speaker 1: fella on Facebook today, Um, just as a teaser. People
Speaker 1: didn't know we're gonna do an episode on it, just
Speaker 1: to get reactions. And most people are like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: super cute, and a lot of people are like, I
Speaker 1: still wouldn't touch that thing. Well, that's a really good,
Speaker 1: sensible thing. Like bats might be cute and all that,
Speaker 1: but they're also enormous reservoirs for diseases. They're like top
Speaker 1: notch disease reservoirs for diseases that you and I can catch,
Speaker 1: like ebola in rabies. And they think one of the
Speaker 1: reasons is because they and we'll talk about this later,
Speaker 1: but they're they're so comfortable with each other, they just
Speaker 1: huddle together, spreading disease on one another exactly. I mean,
Speaker 1: like epidemic disease didn't take hold among humans until we
Speaker 1: moved into cities, and even in cities, like, we're still
Speaker 1: not elbow to elbow figuratively we are, but not in reality.
Speaker 1: Bats are literally elbow to elbow in their colonies, so
Speaker 1: disease spreads anywhere it wants among them. Yeah, however, about
Speaker 1: the raby scare. They are carriers of rabies, but not
Speaker 1: to like people think. I think less than one half
Speaker 1: of one percent of bats are rabid, one half point
Speaker 1: five and you're more way more likely to get rabies
Speaker 1: from raccoons and skunks and okay, well there you go.
Speaker 1: That that puts it in perspective because I like any raccoon.
Speaker 1: I see, maybe I should stop doing that. You should
Speaker 1: probably start do it. They bite me a lot, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she checked out, Maybe I should. Uh so, yes, you said,
Speaker 1: how many species about? And aside from varying in size,
Speaker 1: like you said that, just a look of them, like
Speaker 1: the flying fox looks, like we said, like a little
Speaker 1: fox has that long snout, looks traditionally like a mammal
Speaker 1: has smaller ears, and those little scary looking guys have
Speaker 1: those huge ears, and that knows, that makes you meek gag.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing, like, I believe that even that
Speaker 1: is up in the air now that they've started doing
Speaker 1: genetic testing. What is like that classification based on looks
Speaker 1: as well? It's it's just bat taxonomy is really up
Speaker 1: for grabs right now. It's time. Let's say, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: then the one of the other distinctions too, typically that
Speaker 1: divides these two um suborders chuck is what they eat? Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: the micro bats tend to be carnivorous, so it includes
Speaker 1: vampire bats, but vampire bats are not not all bats
Speaker 1: are vampire bats, even if they're carnivorous. Most bats just
Speaker 1: the insects if they're carnivorous, like mosquitoes. But megabats, including
Speaker 1: those the big ones with the six foot wingspan, the
Speaker 1: flying fox I think you said, um, those are they're
Speaker 1: just hippies. They just eat plants, that's it, like literally
Speaker 1: nectar and spread pollen. Yeah, it's pretty great like birds.
Speaker 1: Why is that funny? It's pretty great. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: wing because this is where my learning really started here
Speaker 1: in researching this. The German word for bats is uh
Speaker 1: fida moves. I expected more from you than that, yeah, really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I expected you to put on like a metal hat
Speaker 1: with like a spike coming out of the top that
Speaker 1: translates into flying mice. Yes for the curious. And people
Speaker 1: will say that because a bat does look kind of
Speaker 1: like a flying mouse or flying rodent of some sort.
Speaker 1: But like I said, they're much more closely related to humans. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you also might think they're like birds because they
Speaker 1: fly around. Not so when you look at the wing
Speaker 1: structure of a bat and a bird, uh, very different.
Speaker 1: It actually if you look at a human, if you
Speaker 1: held your arms out to your side with your elbows
Speaker 1: bent and your fingers spread, and then basically shook your hands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're gonna do jazz hands exactly. And then imagine
Speaker 1: that there was a webbed membrane called a how would
Speaker 1: you pronounce it, pettigym PETA giant peta giant. I don't
Speaker 1: have one of those two those are the wings. The flesh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go, the flesh of the wing. If you
Speaker 1: held your hands out into jazz hands, but it was
Speaker 1: all webbed and connected. That is way more what a
Speaker 1: bat's wing it looks like in functions like than a
Speaker 1: bird's wing. Right. So a bird's wing has rigid bones
Speaker 1: in it, right, and the muscles that control the wings
Speaker 1: are located basically at what would amount to your armpits.
Speaker 1: Like so like, just do the chicken nance real quick
Speaker 1: and think about what you're doing. Yes, right, you're you're
Speaker 1: you're not. There's not really any movement in the actual arm.
Speaker 1: It's all at the shoulder joint. Ye. Same with birds.
Speaker 1: With bats, that is not the case because their base
Speaker 1: sically like winged hands, which is the reason they're their
Speaker 1: order is named that right. Yes, um, they can basically
Speaker 1: swim through the air, which allows them to dive, bomb
Speaker 1: and turn and twist and go up and down and
Speaker 1: go after These insects that can fly really fast, which
Speaker 1: constitute most of their prey um much more easily, and
Speaker 1: they're much more depth at um maneuvering midair than your
Speaker 1: average bird is. Yes, absolutely, like a thousand times. There's
Speaker 1: no science behind that. I would say even like times. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I mean if there's if we're going without scienceless to
Speaker 1: say like a million times more a gazillion. Uh. They
Speaker 1: have little thumbs that extend out of the wing as
Speaker 1: a in the form of a little small claw, and
Speaker 1: this is what they use to climb trees. Um, it's
Speaker 1: really neat how they fly. I guess we'll go ahead
Speaker 1: and let the cat out of the bag. They don't
Speaker 1: have enough lift with their wings to take off like
Speaker 1: sitting on a branch like a bird. They don't have
Speaker 1: like strong enough legs to run run, run, run, run
Speaker 1: down a runway and take off, so they hang upside
Speaker 1: down and drop and then start flying. They have like small,
Speaker 1: withered little legs that they basically dragged behind them as
Speaker 1: they crawl. Yeah, and so that's why they climb trees.
Speaker 1: They climb up to a high launch point and we'll
Speaker 1: get to the hanging later because that's super cool too,
Speaker 1: and then just fall and start flying. That's how bads fly. Uh.
Speaker 1: Scientifically speaking, they believe that bat's um used to not fly,
Speaker 1: and thanks to natural selection, the ones who could leap
Speaker 1: further and further from tree to tree, uh were more successful,
Speaker 1: and that eventually led to um that patagium being formed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they know they could fly, kind of like lemurs are
Speaker 1: flying squirrels or something like that. Right, So, like one
Speaker 1: of them was born with an extra skim flap and
Speaker 1: everyone's like, you freak, and then it flew and they
Speaker 1: were like, wow, the exactly look at all these insects
Speaker 1: I got um. So they think that the bat evolved,
Speaker 1: like you said, from a tree dwelling mammal, which we
Speaker 1: likely did as well, which is why we're related to bats.
Speaker 1: Most likely we share some sort of single common ancestor
Speaker 1: that dwelt in trees um and probably bats evolved somewhere
Speaker 1: around a hundred million years ago, is what they believe.
Speaker 1: But I think the oldest fossils they found are like
Speaker 1: fifty million in change, and these fossils that they found
Speaker 1: in wyoming um show that the wings are there, but
Speaker 1: the ears are not developed, which suggests that flying developed
Speaker 1: among bats before echolocation did, which has been a longstanding debate.
Speaker 1: Did they did echo like location come first, did flying
Speaker 1: come first, or did they both evolve at the same time?
Speaker 1: And it turns out flying was first? Well, right for
Speaker 1: this break, we will talk about that echo location. How
Speaker 1: about that. Let's all right, Josh. We talked about the
Speaker 1: wing structure makes them uh able to hunt really well,
Speaker 1: but it's really a one two punch um along with
Speaker 1: their echolocation or echo loctive abilities. I think that's the word.
Speaker 1: Is that a word? Yeah? Right? So, Um, you can
Speaker 1: maneuver all day long, but if you can't find your prey,
Speaker 1: usually doing a weird dance exactly, and you're just showing
Speaker 1: off um and the way that bats find their prey.
Speaker 1: There's a common myth, chuck that bat blind is a
Speaker 1: bat that bats can't see absolutely untrue. Most bats have
Speaker 1: like perfectly good vision, like like exceptional vision. Even Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: there was a study, it's some German study I believe
Speaker 1: that found that um bats have rods and cones, which
Speaker 1: means they can see color in the daylight as well
Speaker 1: as um like black and white stuff right old movies,
Speaker 1: um before Ted Turner got his hands on him, and
Speaker 1: that never went anywhere. It really didn't. But now it's
Speaker 1: like there, it's done. Now the Wizard of Oz is
Speaker 1: like gaudy, as gaudy as like the terra Cotta Army.
Speaker 1: Originally the Wizard of Oz always was both because when
Speaker 1: they get to Oz, it's color Oh yeah, you're right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well what oh gone with the wind? I think he
Speaker 1: did colorize he did colorize it. Anyway, can you tell
Speaker 1: it's been a little lot since we've done this. I
Speaker 1: think it's great. I can. It's also really hot in here,
Speaker 1: and it's getting hotter by the second. The more I stall,
Speaker 1: the hotter it gets. Allow me to continue. So bats
Speaker 1: echolocate as well as c and again I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find this chuck, but I think micro bats
Speaker 1: might be the only type to echolocate. I don't think
Speaker 1: all bats to. The reason why is because if you're
Speaker 1: hippie pollen eating um herbivore bat, you don't need to
Speaker 1: echolocate your food. You can just fly around until you
Speaker 1: run into a flower. Yeah, yeah, and smash it and
Speaker 1: then just like lean over and suck it. There's some nectar. Okay.
Speaker 1: If you are seeking flying insects as your prey, then yeah,
Speaker 1: you better be able to echolocate. And we can actually echolocate.
Speaker 1: There's a man who um is sightless? Who who can
Speaker 1: echo locate and he's a human being is Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't remember what. Maybe a Men's Health article on him
Speaker 1: like this dude just taught himself to echo locate. Did
Speaker 1: they call him batman? Probably? I don't remember that much. Well,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been to um Canyon, let's say a
Speaker 1: Grand canyon, let's say the Grand Canyon Um, and you
Speaker 1: boom your your voice out there, please don't say hello,
Speaker 1: or is anyone out there? Those are? You know? Come
Speaker 1: up with something better than that, better than Pink Floyd lyrics. No,
Speaker 1: if it's in that context, then it passes. What would
Speaker 1: you recommend for an echo man? What's your go to
Speaker 1: echo words? Um? Definitely not echo. I think echo is great,
Speaker 1: it's hilarious. Definitely not Hello, you know, I would say
Speaker 1: I would say, now batting for the New York Yankees,
Speaker 1: Manny Moto, Mandy Moto, That's what I would do, but
Speaker 1: you could also do cock do the chicken dance. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be good. So whenever you choose to go with
Speaker 1: that's your next visit to the canyons um. You will
Speaker 1: hear that echo come back to you. And it's basically
Speaker 1: the same way that bats use, except instead of echoing
Speaker 1: off of a canyon wall, it's echo off of a
Speaker 1: mosquito or whatever. Yeah, when you make sound waves and
Speaker 1: it travels and it hits that canyon, all it comes
Speaker 1: back to you, right, And bets do the same thing,
Speaker 1: but like you said, they're bouncing off of a mosquito
Speaker 1: or um some other flighted bug that it eats, and
Speaker 1: just from standard echolocation, the bat can identify, oh, there's
Speaker 1: a mosquito there, like all this other stuff, all the
Speaker 1: all the other sound that I just put out there
Speaker 1: came back at a much slower rate than this little
Speaker 1: spot did, and that spot is probably a mosquito. But
Speaker 1: it gets way more detailed than that. Basically, bat's echolocation
Speaker 1: um is picked up and they're still not entirely certain,
Speaker 1: like what kind of receptors the bat has. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's apparently all oral, but in the bat's brain it
Speaker 1: creates what would be about equivalent to our visual field,
Speaker 1: Like we see light bouncing off of stuff, and I
Speaker 1: can tell roughly how far a way you are and
Speaker 1: where you are, and what position you're facing or what
Speaker 1: direction you're going, all through light waves in an instant
Speaker 1: like we don't have to think about that, see it,
Speaker 1: and it's there. That's not calculating all of this, it's
Speaker 1: just getting this Information's brain is automatically putting it together.
Speaker 1: And what it amounts again to like a video of
Speaker 1: a visible video spatial field. Right, and so it knows
Speaker 1: there's mosquito. It's about this big. It's about yea big.
Speaker 1: It's traveling at this rate in this direction, and it's
Speaker 1: like right below me. And it goes and gets the
Speaker 1: mosquito all from rather than picking up light waves, creating
Speaker 1: a sound wave and listening for uh, it's echo, that's echolocation.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. So and also I should say, chuck, it's
Speaker 1: really good that this is ultrasonic um because that some
Speaker 1: of them go up to like a hundred and twenty decibels,
Speaker 1: which is the equivalent of having a smoke detector like
Speaker 1: a couple inches from your ear. No, it shatter you
Speaker 1: your life, all right, So let's talk about the different parts. Um.
Speaker 1: They will determine the distance of the mosquito by how
Speaker 1: long it takes that noise to return. Uh. You and
Speaker 1: I could do that with simple math. Uh. At a canyon,
Speaker 1: we could actually calculate how far away that other wall
Speaker 1: is with maths you know, uh location, They can determine
Speaker 1: where it is and how big it is and what
Speaker 1: direction is moving by literally like if the mosquito sound
Speaker 1: bounces back and hits the right ear before the left ear,
Speaker 1: you know it's going to be the right That's pretty easy. Um.
Speaker 1: And then they have all these little complex folds within
Speaker 1: the ear. It's not just like a big, dumb human
Speaker 1: ear like we have, UM, lots of little folds that
Speaker 1: will help indicate its vertical position as well. So if
Speaker 1: they know it's coming from above, it'll sound different in
Speaker 1: the ear than if it's below. And again to the bat,
Speaker 1: all this is happening automatically. Its brain is putting all
Speaker 1: this information together, and the bat knows there's a mosquito
Speaker 1: right below. It's right. The size is determined by the
Speaker 1: intensity of the echo. Something uh larger will have a
Speaker 1: you know, more intense echo. So that's a big fat
Speaker 1: mosquito that just feasted on Josh. So it's got lots
Speaker 1: of delicious of blood, delicious blood and um. They also
Speaker 1: used the Doppler effect, Chuck, to determine whether something is
Speaker 1: going away from it or toward it. That's right. Remember
Speaker 1: the Doppler effect. I've mentioned it before and got it
Speaker 1: totally wrong. Let me try again. It's tough, You're ready.
Speaker 1: So the wavelength of something is is set, it's determined, right,
Speaker 1: But if something is coming near you, that wavelength has
Speaker 1: to be compressed in a shorter space. So therefore the
Speaker 1: frequency the pitch increases. If something traveling away from you,
Speaker 1: it has a lot more space between it and you
Speaker 1: to fill up that same way length that same that
Speaker 1: same yeah, the same wavelength, so the frequency the pitch
Speaker 1: goes lower. That's the Doppler effect, right. I think it's
Speaker 1: the Doppler Why do I have feeling you're gonna get email?
Speaker 1: The people like, oh, Josh so close? Really practic, but
Speaker 1: this one more thing. Um. So that is how they
Speaker 1: determine distance, location, size, direction and direction. Amazing, and also
Speaker 1: the actual sound that they're making when they echo. Locate
Speaker 1: a lot of bats fly around with their mouths open,
Speaker 1: and they look like they're just kind of slack jawed yokels. Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out there making their echolocation squeaks the whole time. Again,
Speaker 1: it's just ultrasonic, which is above the human threshold of hearing, right,
Speaker 1: So it's squeaking the whole time. It's not just sitting
Speaker 1: there with its mouth a gate. And some bats also, um,
Speaker 1: especially the microbats that have the crazy nostrils that make
Speaker 1: umi gag um, those actually will echolocate and generate the
Speaker 1: sound through their nose. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why they look that way. Mh. They're like little speakers. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I think we nailed like a location, don't you, and
Speaker 1: the Doppler effect. Maybe put that one to bed um
Speaker 1: and we will talk more about bats, including their little
Speaker 1: families that they stay in right after this, Chuck. So
Speaker 1: you talked a little bit about bats and how they
Speaker 1: love to huddle together, and it depends on the kind
Speaker 1: of bat, the bloodthirsty bats, vampire bats. They actually tend
Speaker 1: to roost in small little colonies or solitary lee. I
Speaker 1: believe sometimes in like really hard to reach places like
Speaker 1: the Lost Boys. Yeah, yeah, like your fireplace. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: had to battle a bat once in a fireplace. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: smoke it out. Uh No, I I didn't smoke it out.
Speaker 1: I put on a leather coat over another coat, gloves,
Speaker 1: suit up before you do any like battle with nature,
Speaker 1: laundry baskett in a broom and I lost. But um,
Speaker 1: they they they'll be by themselves usually. That's a good
Speaker 1: giveaway that you have encountered a blood sucking bat. The
Speaker 1: hippie herbivore bats, those tend to congregate and enormous colonies,
Speaker 1: some often composed of millions of bats. Millions. Yeah, pretty amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um they we Well, you mentioned that they do all
Speaker 1: this feeding and activity dawn, dusk and overnight because they
Speaker 1: will um get eaten by hawks and falcons and things
Speaker 1: during the day uh and other predators too, So they
Speaker 1: like to stay away during the day and um and
Speaker 1: hide out like you said, the caves, dark places, under bridges.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about austin in a bit, right. Hawks don't
Speaker 1: typically go into caves, they hang out in trees. So
Speaker 1: bats go off and spend their days sleeping in caves
Speaker 1: upside down upside down. And you were saying earlier that
Speaker 1: you were excited about talking about that, and I understand why. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said earlier, the reason they hang
Speaker 1: upside down is not to look creepy. Uh, it's because
Speaker 1: that's the way that they launched themselves to fly right,
Speaker 1: and when they're sleeping upside down, they're able to sleep.
Speaker 1: You would think that, well, yeah, if you're like hanging
Speaker 1: onto something upside down, get tired. Yeah, you've got to
Speaker 1: really tense your muscles. Not with the bat you would
Speaker 1: if you were doing that. This is the fact of
Speaker 1: the show for me. I think you should take it. Well.
Speaker 1: You're right. If I was hanging upside down, I would
Speaker 1: not last very long because second A, I would be clinched. Well,
Speaker 1: we couldn't even hang upside down because we'd be using
Speaker 1: our hands and all the blood would rush to your
Speaker 1: head too, and you just pass out. It would be
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable, That's right. But what would happen if we
Speaker 1: were to try to do that, or like to try
Speaker 1: to do a pull up, let's say, is we would
Speaker 1: you know, clench our fists around something which contracts muscles,
Speaker 1: which h or attached to your fingers by tendons. It's
Speaker 1: all one big uh, connection, series of connections. Right to
Speaker 1: hang onto something, to class something, or to grab that
Speaker 1: coffee cup, exactly, And you're exerting energy by by contracting
Speaker 1: your muscle, right, that's right. With a bat, that's not
Speaker 1: the case at all. No, their tendons are only connected
Speaker 1: to the upper body. No muscle involve whatsoever. Right, So
Speaker 1: when they're hanging upside down, their upper body is pulling
Speaker 1: down on their tendons, which means their claws clothes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: under whatever they're hanging from. Yeah, it's like it's it's
Speaker 1: gravity coupled with just a reaction, like a literally a
Speaker 1: physical reaction from pulling that bat will make those claws
Speaker 1: close exactly. So it requires no energy whatsoever, right or talents,
Speaker 1: I guess we should say, right, And but it requires
Speaker 1: no energy none whatsoever. And bats will actually like they'll
Speaker 1: die in that position sometimes. Yeah. So what they do
Speaker 1: is they'll fly up to this thing. They will initially
Speaker 1: clasp it with their claws and then relax, and when
Speaker 1: they relax, they hang, which makes them clamp down really hard.
Speaker 1: And like you said, when they if they die hanging there,
Speaker 1: they will stay hanging there and they can go to sleep.
Speaker 1: That's where they sleep so um. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: why it's so important that a bat doesn't have to
Speaker 1: expend any energy while it's upside down is because they're mammals,
Speaker 1: which means that they are warm blooded, which means that
Speaker 1: they regulate their own temperature internally, right, which requires a
Speaker 1: lot of energy. UM. That puts bats at a particular
Speaker 1: disadvantage because they fly, and it requires a ton of energy.
Speaker 1: Mammals are not designed to fly. To generate the the
Speaker 1: energy needed to fly, bats can do it, but to
Speaker 1: do it they have to enter what's called the state
Speaker 1: of torpor every day. And basically, while they're hanging upside down,
Speaker 1: they get super super sleepy, and they get um so
Speaker 1: sleepy that their metabolism starts to slow and their internal
Speaker 1: their internal temperature falls and becomes about an equilibrium with
Speaker 1: the external temperature. So they go from um warm blooded
Speaker 1: to essentially cold blooded during a single day, like David
Speaker 1: Blaine might yes if he was preparing for like some
Speaker 1: weird stunt. They're controlling their own internal temperature and their
Speaker 1: own metabolic rate, right. So while they're doing this, when
Speaker 1: their metabolism slows, they're using up less energy, which means
Speaker 1: that they're conserving it for when they fly later on
Speaker 1: when they go hunt, which is pretty awesome. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: can actually even hibernate some bats, yes, if they're in
Speaker 1: a region where it calls for it, or they may
Speaker 1: just do like birds and migrate to warmer climbs. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of different bats and a lot of different
Speaker 1: things that bats too. Is that going to be our
Speaker 1: little tag this episode? Uh, all right, well let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bat. Um. It's called this fact and fiction
Speaker 1: since that's what this section is called in the article.
Speaker 1: Pretty original. Um, Like we said, their leathery wings and
Speaker 1: their weird faces and their resemblance to ghouls and demons
Speaker 1: make them vilified. But bats are our friends because they
Speaker 1: eat tons and tons of insects literally tons. Yeah. What
Speaker 1: was the stat on that there's um, twelve mosquitoes in
Speaker 1: an hour one bat. That's a little brown bat in
Speaker 1: North America. It's the most common North American bat species
Speaker 1: mosquitoes in an hour, Which you say, who cares, there's
Speaker 1: trillions and trillions of mosquitoes. Well, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of bats, that's right. Um, there's a bat cave and
Speaker 1: and brock In cave or brack In cave, Texas that
Speaker 1: has twenty million bats. It's a colony and every night
Speaker 1: they eat two hundred tons of insects two hundred tons,
Speaker 1: and a lot of those insects are um crop ruining insects.
Speaker 1: So farmers frequently take their hats off and wave to
Speaker 1: the bats. Hello, Hello, and something of a salute um
Speaker 1: when the bats fly by. Yeah. Have you ever seen
Speaker 1: a farmer do that to a bat? It's really pumping
Speaker 1: round up in one hand and waving at the bats
Speaker 1: in the other. You'll bring a little two d your eye. Uh.
Speaker 1: They are plant pollinators, like we said, they will go
Speaker 1: in and um gather nectar. And when they do this,
Speaker 1: they get pollen on their bodies. When they fly away,
Speaker 1: they spread that pollen. So specifically, um, they're pollinators of bananas, figs, mangoes, cashews,
Speaker 1: and a guy. They So if you are hammered on
Speaker 1: tequila right now, thank a bat, thank a bad And
Speaker 1: you mentioned that um colony in Texas. In Austin, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: under the Congress Avenue Bridge, very famous spot two. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's a big tourist attraction. Now they've embraced so they're
Speaker 1: bringing tourist dollars into they pollinate, they eat pest bugs,
Speaker 1: and they bring in the tourists. I think some of
Speaker 1: them are uber drivers as well. They're just trying to
Speaker 1: eat out a living yep, exactly. Uh what else, Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the guano you know. That is it's poop,
Speaker 1: that's bat poop, and guano is very rich in nitrogen
Speaker 1: and is a great fertilizer. And uh, not only that,
Speaker 1: but at one point the U. S Army and even
Speaker 1: further back, the UH Southern Army, the Confederate Army, I
Speaker 1: believe they're called used they collected back guano to use
Speaker 1: his gunpowder and explosives thanks check to the salt peter
Speaker 1: from it. And I had no idea. Yeah, it actually
Speaker 1: extended the Civil War because once all their their fortifications
Speaker 1: were destroyed, they literally went and collected guano from bat
Speaker 1: caves to keep making bombs. Around about bombs, but gunpowder.
Speaker 1: And again it is also like a top notch fertilizer
Speaker 1: that's still in use today. Like you can buy back
Speaker 1: guano at the average nursery. Probably um and not it
Speaker 1: wasn't back guano, but burg guano too has been used
Speaker 1: and wars have been fought over it. It's such an
Speaker 1: effective fertilizer and power energy source. Um. That Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, so go read um. I can't remember talks
Speaker 1: about this. Um. On the on the scarier side, though,
Speaker 1: you did mention vampire bats and they do feed on blood. Um,
Speaker 1: but this article is keen to point out that they
Speaker 1: are not bloodthirsty man hunters. Uh, they will know they're
Speaker 1: man stalkers. The lead a cow. They when I say
Speaker 1: eat a cow, they won't eat a cow. No, they
Speaker 1: You cow didn't even you know, it didn't hurt the
Speaker 1: cow that much, right, No, unless the cow contracts an
Speaker 1: infection or something from it. Yeah. The vampire bats usually
Speaker 1: need about one to two tablespoons of blood and night,
Speaker 1: which you can easily get from a cow without any
Speaker 1: harm to the cow as far as blood loss goes, right,
Speaker 1: and the cow typically doesn't even know what's going on
Speaker 1: because the vampire bats have very sharp teeth that um,
Speaker 1: don't really make much of a sensation going in, and
Speaker 1: the saliva has an anticoagulant in it, so the blood
Speaker 1: just kind of trickles out and keeps coming and then
Speaker 1: the vampire bat flies away. Um. Well, what's interesting about them, though,
Speaker 1: is they don't fly onto you, They fly near you,
Speaker 1: and then they stalk you on all fours, which makes
Speaker 1: it super creepy, even though I love that. A crawling
Speaker 1: bat with those wings is a little creepy coming to
Speaker 1: suck your blood. Yeah, yeah, or no, it's not sucking blood. Remember,
Speaker 1: it's an anti coagulant, so it just opens lapping up blood. Apparently.
Speaker 1: They also have a cool little um organ in their nose.
Speaker 1: It's like a heat sensing organ, so they can find
Speaker 1: like where the blood is closest to the skin and
Speaker 1: then go. Uh, let's talk about reproduction for a second. Um.
Speaker 1: They reproduce typically only once a year of battery production. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh you thought of it, just like us. I thought
Speaker 1: you're about to seeing salt and pepper. Um. They reproduce
Speaker 1: typically only once a year, and that makes them it's tough.
Speaker 1: They're some of the least producing mammals in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they produced one baby a year on average. Something can
Speaker 1: reproduce more, but not that doesn't happen that much. They're
Speaker 1: called pups, which is very cute. Pup the mother's body weight,
Speaker 1: which is remarkable because they often nurse while the mothers
Speaker 1: flying around. Yeah, so that would be like a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty pound woman having a thirty pound baby just
Speaker 1: attached to her while she's flying exactly. Uh. They live,
Speaker 1: like we said, in large colonies and um so it's
Speaker 1: not hard to find a mate. But once the females
Speaker 1: get pregnant, they tend to form a maternal colony, a
Speaker 1: maternity colony within the colony. That's pretty neat. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: apparently the bats are very altruistic, like they've recorded um
Speaker 1: acts of bats going and bringing food back for bats
Speaker 1: who are sick in in the colony. Yeah, that's pretty neat.
Speaker 1: That's pretty You don't find that very often in nature, No,
Speaker 1: not even with man right in many cases. Yeah, uh
Speaker 1: so they'll form that little maternity colony, which is super
Speaker 1: sweet because the men don't really stick around and help
Speaker 1: raise the young. Evidently they just do their thing and
Speaker 1: they're gone. Um and apparently the colonies are men tend
Speaker 1: to hang out with men, and women tend to hang
Speaker 1: out with women. Anyway, it's like an eighth grade dancing there. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Uh So what happens is that the women care for
Speaker 1: their offspring for a while, but they don't have a
Speaker 1: whole lot of time to do it. Um. About six
Speaker 1: weeks to four months, and then the bat is fully
Speaker 1: independent and can fly on its own, which is great.
Speaker 1: And uh, this is the second fact of the podcast
Speaker 1: to me. The female bat is so smart. They can
Speaker 1: delay they're uh, they can delay their fertilization based on
Speaker 1: like the best time to have a baby bat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they can have the sex in the fall and
Speaker 1: hold that sperm, uh, and release the sperm to meet
Speaker 1: the eggs like six months later in the spring. Isn't
Speaker 1: that amazing? They've learned to actually control their own cycle,
Speaker 1: have some serious world power. Well, they want to survive,
Speaker 1: you know, they are ultimate survivors. You know, bats have
Speaker 1: um a real problem facing them right now, chuck with
Speaker 1: white nose fungus. I know. And this is sort of uh,
Speaker 1: well it's not only a threat, but it's a bit
Speaker 1: of a mystery, isn't it. Like why it's so widespread
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Well, it's just spreading like wildfire,
Speaker 1: in part because back colonies are so huddled and close together.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, it's just the ones that hibernate
Speaker 1: that are having the problem because this white nose fungus
Speaker 1: it is like a it's a fungus that grows on
Speaker 1: their nose, and apparently the itch makes the bats that
Speaker 1: are hibernating wake up, and when they wake up, they're
Speaker 1: in big trouble because an animal that hibernates has just
Speaker 1: enough energy store to make it through the hibernation period.
Speaker 1: If they wake up and blow a bunch of energy,
Speaker 1: like bringing their metabolism and body heat back up to
Speaker 1: normal levels, and then try to go back into hibernation,
Speaker 1: they'll starve to death before the winner's over. So this
Speaker 1: white fungus grows on their noses and other parts, but
Speaker 1: typically on the nose and wakes them up, and then
Speaker 1: they spend all their energy and end up dying or
Speaker 1: they die from exposure to these winter temperatures of that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yeah, and apparently it is really deadly,
Speaker 1: like some hybernaculus, which is like a hibernating colony, have
Speaker 1: like ninety to a hundred percent mortality rate when white
Speaker 1: white nose fungus gets ahold of them. Holy cow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's a real problem. They don't know how to
Speaker 1: stop it. Well. Another real problem is in places, uh
Speaker 1: some parts of South America when there's a rabies um
Speaker 1: fear going around like an outbreak in the town. They
Speaker 1: will bomb a cave full of bats, blow it up.
Speaker 1: That will blow it up. And let's say there's a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand bats in there and uh point five percent
Speaker 1: of those have rabies, so that's five hundred rabid bats.
Speaker 1: They're killing off a hundred thousand, and then they're like,
Speaker 1: what's up with all these mosquitoes, why don't have malaria? Well,
Speaker 1: either that or the bats. They go after the ones
Speaker 1: they can easily find in caves, which are the ones
Speaker 1: that pollinate. They're not even vampire bats, so they're not
Speaker 1: getting rabies from them anyway. So they're killing a bunch
Speaker 1: of bats that aren't spreading rabies at all, and that
Speaker 1: actually are right. But most pollinating bats don't come in
Speaker 1: contact with humans. The vampire bats are the ones you
Speaker 1: would have to really worry about catching rabies from. So
Speaker 1: they're not even getting the ones that are spreading the rabies.
Speaker 1: Just misinformation. There's one more threat from humans that started
Speaker 1: to come to shape and fruition but didn't fully Back
Speaker 1: in World War two, did you hear about bat bombs?
Speaker 1: So there was a dude in the US who had
Speaker 1: this great idea and it was an attaching incendiary bombs
Speaker 1: to bats and then releasing the bats in Japan. That's
Speaker 1: pretty good idea. So this guy apparently had the ear
Speaker 1: of and I've read this in an Atlantic article. Um,
Speaker 1: this guy had the ear of Eleanor Roosevelt. And it
Speaker 1: ended up becoming like an army research project that went
Speaker 1: far enough along that there were mishaps, like, uh, an
Speaker 1: airplane hangar blew up because some bats got released prematurely.
Speaker 1: A general's car blew up for the same reason. Um,
Speaker 1: And it almost happened, and then they just dropped it.
Speaker 1: What did Eleanor Roosevelt have to do with it? Well,
Speaker 1: she was the the first lady at the time. Well,
Speaker 1: I know, but since when the first ladies not could
Speaker 1: like work with education and nutrition, like when she like,
Speaker 1: how about bombats? Eleanor Roosevelt definitely was seated at the
Speaker 1: right hand of the seed of power. She was a
Speaker 1: sharp lady. Crazy Yeah, bat bombs. She wasn't that sharp.
Speaker 1: She thought that was a good idea. I have the
Speaker 1: impression that she was doing it as a favor, like
Speaker 1: getting this guy entree to sure the army that the
Speaker 1: war room. Yeah, so that's Eleanor Roosevelt. You got anything else? Nope.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about bats, you can
Speaker 1: type that word into the search bar at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com and again go look up bat eating
Speaker 1: a banana. It's so adorable, yeah, or little baby bat
Speaker 1: burritos they have like the nurseries with a bunch of them,
Speaker 1: like nursing on bottles and wrapped up in little swaddles.
Speaker 1: So cute, very cute. Uh. And since I said adorable,
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this one
Speaker 1: of the ten people that saw us perform in Washington
Speaker 1: Square Park. Oh yeah, the ten yep, So they get
Speaker 1: in any one of you if you email us, I'll
Speaker 1: read it on the air. All of them are missing time. Uh.
Speaker 1: Long time listener and fan here guys introduced my boyfriend
Speaker 1: to the podcast as well. You saved many hours of
Speaker 1: boardom on road trips. Have to say the recent episode
Speaker 1: about how Nazis attempted to invade Long Island in Florida
Speaker 1: was one of my favorites ever. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: of great response from that one. By the way, I
Speaker 1: lived in New York City for eight years now and
Speaker 1: spent a lovely summer days on uh a mag Magonset,
Speaker 1: beach Amaganset. Jeez. Yeah, so the thought of a U
Speaker 1: boat rolling up there and depositing German spies with plans
Speaker 1: to attack New York is particularly chilling. My boyfriend and
Speaker 1: I attended your show in Washington Square Park and your
Speaker 1: big live show in New York City this summer, and
Speaker 1: the latter is why I'm writing. I felt you, um
Speaker 1: should know, as a result of the topic you chose
Speaker 1: for the show, you cost me several nights of kitchen
Speaker 1: clean up duty. Before the show, we were grabbing drinks
Speaker 1: next door, and uh decided to make things interesting with
Speaker 1: a little bit as to what the topic would be.
Speaker 1: We came up with six possible categories. We thought it
Speaker 1: could fall into biology, geography, history, physics, current events, and
Speaker 1: political social Uh it could have fallen into three of those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're not going to reveal it here, by
Speaker 1: the way, people, because we're touring that same show at
Speaker 1: least one more go around in this fall. And so
Speaker 1: if you have seen the show, we're gonna say this
Speaker 1: again and again, don't come again unless you just want to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some people you know, like uh follow the Grateful Dead
Speaker 1: or fish around see the same show. No, they play
Speaker 1: a different show every night, and that's why they fall
Speaker 1: him around. Well, not completely different every night and pretty
Speaker 1: much different. That's impossible. No, I mean like they played
Speaker 1: a different show every night. Well, they might alter songs,
Speaker 1: but there's not that they don't have three thousand songs.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of songs. These people see them
Speaker 1: hundreds of nights in a row. Yeah, all right, Well
Speaker 1: maybe we have some stuff heads that want to follow
Speaker 1: us around. Yeah, they're all like driving around in vans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we mixed our show up a little bit. All right.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good public announcement though, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: what you just did? So we scribbled these down on napkin.
Speaker 1: Did the draft style selection? Uh went back and forth
Speaker 1: picking categories at a feeling I was confident with my
Speaker 1: chances for the moment you announced the topic, blank, I
Speaker 1: knew I'd lost. He had political, social, and current events.
Speaker 1: So that's a bit of a hint. Yes it's not
Speaker 1: biology anyway, Guys who really enjoyed the live shows and
Speaker 1: hope you come back to New York soon. And that
Speaker 1: is from Natalie bright Back and her boyfriend Hagen. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: Hoggen h a g. A. N. Hagan I worked for
Speaker 1: with Hagen right, Uh, I would say it should be
Speaker 1: Haggen and if they got married, he should take her
Speaker 1: last name and beggen Breitbach. That's a good one. That's
Speaker 1: a great name. That it sounds like there's oom lots
Speaker 1: all over the place. Uh. Well, if you want to
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