Bats: Myths

Summary: Bats what to fly into your hair and suck your blood! False! In this episode Kiersten talks about some of the most common myths about bats and uncovers the truth.

 

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

 

Show Notes:

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

 

Transcript

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Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

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Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

We are just halfway through bats, listeners, and am am super excited for this episode. One of my favorite things when I teach about bats is myth busting. So, the sixth thing I like about bats is breaking down and wiping away the myths that make us fear them. 

As humans we are often afraid of the dark and we are definitely afraid of things we do not understand. This is a double whammy against bats. They come out at night, fly around where we can’t see them, and make strange squeaky noises we don’t understand. Misunderstanding leads to myths, myths lead to fear, and fear leads to bad news for bats.

In this episode we’re going to take a look at some of the most common myths about bats and determine what’s true and what’s not. 

One of the oldest myths about bats is that they want to fly into your hair.  I understand where this one came from, but it one hundred percent false. Bats do not want to be in your hair. This originated from campers misinterpreting bats swooping around their heads as they were enjoying the outdoors at night. Okay, if they don’t want to get into my hair, what are they doing swooping around my head?

If you are outdoors, there are others creatures that are attracted to us such as mosquitos. If you are sitting by a fire, other species of insects are attracted to the heat and light. I think you see where I am going with this, the bats are swooping down to catch the insects that are hovering around our heads. Anyone who has ever been bitten by a mosquito, you are probably thankful for this behavior. One less mosquito…am I right?

I have actually used this behavior to advantage when I took a mammalogy class and we went out the study bats in the wild. If you stand on a well used trail with your headlight pointing straight forward and stay still, insects will begin to fly through your light. The bats won’t be far behind. You can see them swooping through the light to catch the insects and it is so cool!

This brings me to the second half of this myth. Bats only end up hitting your head when you panic and throw up an arm up and they are unable to avoid the sudden movement. They are never aiming to land in your hair. 

Why did the bat that got trapped in my house swoop at me? There wasn’t a swarm of insects in my living room! First, bats never want to be in your living space, but sometimes they get lost or they’ve been roosting in your cabin when you haven’t been using it and you coming in for a weekend disturbs them. They just want to get out and away from you and back to a quiet roosting spot. What happens when they swoop toward you in the middle of the room is that as they are flying around looking for a place to hide or an exit and as they approach the walls they have to slow down to turn around. When they slow down they lose elevation and swoop toward the floor in the middle of the room where you’re standing flipping out. 

Don’t panic. Just relax. Open a door if you can to