July 24, 2025 • 51 mins
Get ready to go batty with excitement!
Join me on Thursday, July 24th for a brand new episode of Batty for Bats: A Dive into the Weird and Wonderful featuring special guest Alyson Brokaw, bat scientist and author of The Weird and Wonderful World of Bats!
We’ll be chatting all about these fascinating creatures—how they live, why they’re vital to our ecosystems, and busting the biggest bat myths out there.
Don’t miss this amazing deep dive into the nocturnal world of nature’s misunderstood superheroes!
Join me on Thursday, July 24th for a brand new episode of Batty for Bats: A Dive into the Weird and Wonderful featuring special guest Alyson Brokaw, bat scientist and author of The Weird and Wonderful World of Bats!
We’ll be chatting all about these fascinating creatures—how they live, why they’re vital to our ecosystems, and busting the biggest bat myths out there.
Don’t miss this amazing deep dive into the nocturnal world of nature’s misunderstood superheroes!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good evening everybody, and welcome to calling out creatures. As
most of you that listen and know, I am your host, Lori,
and tonight I have a really good podcast. It is
Batty for Bats, a dive into the weird and wonderful
world of bats. And my guest tonight is Alison Brokaw.
(00:23):
She's a behavior ecologist and a bat scientist. And Alison
is going to impart all sorts of wisdom on us
tonight about bats and hopefully to spell a few myths
and stuff that are are you going around about them?
And give us some more information and hopefully we'll all
(00:44):
learn a little bit tonight. So Alison, thank you so
much for being on the podcast tonight. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Of course, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
It's great. Why don't you go ahead and it's just
start out and tell us a little bit about yourself.
I mean, what first inspired your passion for studying bats?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So, like you said, I'm a behavioral ecologist and bat scientist,
which basically means for the behavioral ecology, I'm interested in
why animals do the things they do, and particularly have
been interested in that. I grew up in sort of
(01:24):
rural Pennsylvania, and we would frequently see bats out flying
around in the evenings, especially in the summertime, when we'd
be out on our deck to have dinner, and my
parents would always sort of point them out and be like, look, missus,
bat has come to join us for dinner. So I've
always been surrounded my nature.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Always really loved seeing animals in the wild, and kind
of knew from a pretty early age that I wanted
to be a zoologist or a wildlife biologist.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And then as I was going through you know, college.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I just sort of started to learn about bats and
just realized how much we still didn't really know about them,
and how many sort of gaps and things there were
still to discover, and what we know about bats and
why they do what they do, and just how many
there are. And even after ten plus years of studying bats,
(02:21):
you know, I'm still learning new things. My colleagues were
all still always learning new things about bats, and it's
just it's just very exciting and.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You know, keeps us curious and interested.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I apologize for my dog in here barking. He's okay,
I wasn't gonna bring it up, but we're on the
road and we're in an irvy and as people are
in there eating when I'm doing my podcast, and he
misses them, so you might hear a bark or wine.
I'm so sorry. Anyway, got that out of the way
in case you guys hearing. So I hope y'all can
put up with it. It's an animal podcast, everybody, So anyway,
(02:56):
just letting you know that's what the bark or the
wine is. It's nothing bad or anything like that. He's
just missing his peoples, So.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Okay, sorry.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And I think it's really cool that you wanted to
study bats, because so many people are afraid of bats,
you know, and and all the myths and the misrepresentations
and stuff about them, and so you know, I don't
think as many people are interested in finding things out
about them. So I'm glad that there are some researchers
(03:27):
out there that are looking into bats and finding out
all these really cool things about him. Was there actually
a particular bat species or a field experience that made
you want to write the book that you wrote, The
Weird and Wonderful World of Bats, which we are going
to talk a little bit about as well. What inspired
(03:48):
your book?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, so I would say, not necessarily anything in particular.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I mean, I've definitely had just in my research career.
You know, there's.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Some of my some of my favorite field experiences, one
of will sidetrack, but one of my favorite species of
bat is the wrinkle faced bat, which I encourage your
listeners to google because they're very hard to just picture.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Uh, they are aptly named. They're just so weird and strange.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And I remember the first time I got to see
one in person, and you're just like, what am I
looking at? Well, as far as with the book, so
I have been involved, particularly as I was in grad school,
became really passionate about just sort of science communication in general,
and how we can you know, share all this you know,
(04:44):
sometimes complicated and difficult to understand science with people who
are not scientists.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Or not scientists in our specific fields.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And so I got really involved with with sort of
talking about bats and just kind of realizing that kind of,
as you say, so many people sort of have these
these misconceptions about them. Most people have never seen a
bat up close. You know, It's not something that we
are usually encountering on our day to day lives, and
(05:14):
so they're just sort of this mysterious, you know, thing
flying around in the night, and so being able to
just sort of show people like, you know, here's what
a bat looks like, here's this beautiful diversity of bats.
And then, particularly with COVID nineteen and a lot of
the discussions around sort of bats and diseases, I was
(05:37):
approached by the publishers sort of saying like, hey, would
you be interested in writing this book about bats so
that we can sort of show, you know, all the
good things about bats and kind of really talk about
why they are special and unique and you know that
we don't need to be afraid of them, and the
things that we can learn from them that bats can
you know, tell us about.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Life and evil and immune systems.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
And flights and you know, all these fascinating things just
about our world that we can learn from that. So
that was kind of the main impetus for sort of
writing this book. And it was very fun to get
to dive into, you know, all the things that I
was familiar with, but also you know, I was learning
new things as well as I was I was diving
into the various types of research around that.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Well, I'll tell you it's a really good book. I,
you know, received the copy and I read through it
and I there's so much information in this book about
bats and all the different things you know that you
can possibly think of to know about them, and the
different species and varieties of bats, and the wrinkle face
Man is definitely one you want to look up because
(06:47):
they are very interesting looking. And the pictures, the photographs
in the book are just so good. They're just beautiful
pictures in the book. I just thought some of the ones,
like where the bats were swooping down to get a
drink of water and you could see the beads of
water and stuff from where they were grabbing the water.
(07:07):
It was so cool to see some of these photographs,
you guys, So I highly recommend if you want to
know more about bats, you go get Alison's book. It's
it's well worth.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It, so very good read. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So with that being said, what is the most surprising
thing in your research that you have learned about bat senses?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, it's a good question. So I'll sort of lead
into this question by giving a little more background. So,
my my main interest besides sort of antal behavior, has
been sensory biology. So how animals sort of were us
use their senses, and my research has focused on how
bats use.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Their sense of smell.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And so, you know, we think about bats, you know,
echolocation is being this really important, uh sense that bats
are using. They're using sound to get around, which is
hugely fascinating. And people, you know, my colleagues and people
who study bats, like, we're still figuring out exactly how
that brains process this complicated information and and do it
(08:19):
so quickly. And then my my interests were in how
bads use their sense of smell. But what actually I
found really interesting when I was writing the book was
also learning more about how that's see.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So we've all heard lead, you.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Know, blind as a bat sort of idioms, and uh,
just to sort of clear the air, that all bats
have eyes.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
They can all see.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
There are no blind bats, at least as far as
we know, and they.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Are actually fairly good at seeing. Some of them probably
can see about.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
As well as we can, maybe slightly better, particularly considering
that they are using their vision in the dark. But
there are also bats that can see into color spectrums
that we humans cannot see. So we have some evidence
that bats can see ultraviolet light, so kind of beyond
(09:21):
blue into this sort of ultra violet spectrum where a
lot of insects tend to see colors. We see that
maybe in our bats that are feeding on flowers, and
that may actually be fairly more widespread than we imagine.
And then yet that they have these you know, they
have so many of these specific types of receptors in
(09:44):
their eyes that they are just so much better at
seeing in the dark than humans are. So I just
feel like that's something that we always I don't know, humans,
we're so visually oriented that it's confusing to us that
animals can see in the dark. And so it turns
out that bat there are not so terrible.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
At it, right, Well, yeah, I mean exactly. I mean
cats obviously see pretty well in the dark. I don't
think horses see so well in the dark. But yeah,
there's quite a few different species of animals out there
that see in the dark. And I would have imagined
that bats would be able to see in the dark,
considering they're out at night for the most part. So yeah, hmm, yeah,
(10:24):
that's very interesting. I know a lot of people you
don't think about their echo location that you know, the
sonars and sounds that they're sending out to you know,
make sure they don't fly into things, and you know,
to find their insect prey and stuff like that. You know,
I think that's probably more so what people associate with
bats than of course the sight, I guess.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
But yeah, and it makes sense too.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
So bats can see, but if you're trying to you know,
you are flying at some relatively high speed trying to
spot a very tiny insect that also flying at a
relatively high speed in the dark, it makes sense that
sound is a much more reliable sense than vision, and
so bats have gotten very, very good at using sound.
(11:15):
They can some bats can hear insects walking essentially on leaves.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Some bats can they use the Doppler effect.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
So when you hear like a like an ambulance or
like a police siren, you know how it sounds like
it kind of it's going up and down in frequency, right,
That's actually a function of physics and the way that
sound waves move that the frequency of that sound is
actually constant, but we hear it shift, and so bats
can take advantage of essentially that phenomenon to make calculations
(11:49):
about how fast an insect is moving and where it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Has moved to wow.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah, So that it is this Doppler shift compensation basically,
so they're they are sending out a sign at one frequency,
but their brains are tuned to hear a different frequency,
and so they can be really specialized at which frequencies
they can hear and how well they hear them. And
different bats have different you know, they're tuned to these
(12:16):
different frequencies depending on the type of prey that they
are hunting or the the echulocuation sounds that they or
themselves are making. They're all very specialized, which is great
because it means we can ease drop on them and
actually know what species are flying around just based on
the sounds that they are making.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, well so they have excuse me, they
have specific sounds too. Is it specific to each individual
like bad or would? Is it just specific to the
variety of bad?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
A little bit of both, sou Each individual species of
bat has its own characteristic frequency that it makes its
echolocation calls at, or a set of frequencies. So some
bats are you know, they might start their echolocation call
at one pitch and then they sort of slide down
into a lower pitch over the course of the call,
(13:12):
and we can now using ultrasonic microphones, we can visualize
these calls into what we call spectrograms and visually, and
then you know, using more complex computer sort of transformations
and calculations, we can actually assign species to these calls,
(13:33):
so different species have different slightly different calls.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And then there is.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Also some evidence that bats themselves may be able to,
you know, have some individual flexibility. So the same way
that you know, I can you know, pick off the
phone and my mom is going to know that it's
me on the phone because she recognized with my boys,
bats are probably able to do some of the same
things with the bats that they themselves are in our
(14:00):
acting with and kind of recognize you know, familiar voices.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
All right, well, right, like mom and babies.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Yeah, because yeah, so I know, and that was actually
something I was getting something I was actually going to
ask you about, was about you were talking about bats
like singing or arguing. So is that kind of you know,
something like that, and then you know about is that
kind of like their communication social behavior type of stuff or.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Is it?
Speaker 6 (14:33):
Yes, So the egalocation calls are separate from their social calls.
So the application calls are they there are some they
can vary.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
But they are pretty predictable within species. And if you think.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
About what factor using application calls for, it's for a
very specific reason. They're trying to detect an object or
an insect or you know, a tree.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So those tend to stay relatively consistent.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
But then, just like pretty much every other mammal, almost
every other animal, bats have this whole range of other
sounds that they can make. So we called those collectively
their social calls. And that's basically just any vocalization that
isn't a like a location call, and so.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, they can make all sorts of noises.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
If if people have ever you know, been outside of
a bat roost or been near a roost of bats,
they can be very noisy. It's a lot of squeaking,
a lot of shrills, of hissing.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Those are all we would call social calls.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
So that's the bats sort of interacting with each other,
whether it's to say like hey, back off, you're in
my spot, or you know, a mother trying to you know,
I find for pup after coming home from hunting.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And then you mentioned.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
The singing, so bats song, right, we think of that
as being very human.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
There are only a few other mammals that we know of.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
That produce songs as being defined as these you know,
melodic changing of tone and.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Sound and so other animals that we know of that saying.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Are whales, but then also bats, So there's actually several
species of bats that produce these songs.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Most of them are used for courtship.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
So these bats are out the male they're out there
singing love songs to attract females, and then sometimes they
also use songs the same way that birds do as
a way to sort of say, hey, this is my territory,
you know, if you are another male or another bat
of a different social group, like back off, this place
(16:50):
is mine. So they're using songs in a lot of
different ways, very similar to birds.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Okay, well that would make sense, you, I guess, and
I know I was reading, you know, like with the
interactions and stuff that some bats have, like with the
feeding and stuff like that, that they're kind of particular
sharing food and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, yeah, so that was something that we sort of
learned not that long ago.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
But they will they'll eat drop on each other.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
So if they you know, if I'm a bat out
flying around at night, and I hear another bat making
what's called a feeding does, which is a specific variant
of an equlication call that usually indicates that a bat
has tried to grab an insect. Pretty good indication that
you know, they're actively hunting, actively feeding. You know, I
(17:43):
might feel to if I'm this bat and I hear that,
I might be like, you know what, that sounds like
there's some good eating over there. Like I'm gonna head
that way, and then they will Sometimes the Mexican retail
bats in particular, a species found in.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Southwestern and some western parts of the United States, they
will uh produce.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
A call that actually jams the echolocation calls of their
fellow bats, so.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Like, yeah, that's mine. Yeah, so the you know, they yeah, they've.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Got a whole There's a lot of complexity in the
way that they interact with each other. Different species have
some different different things that they do. As far as
we know, I think the like the retail bats are
the only ones that we know of that have these
interference calls, but a lot of them have a lot
of different fats do songs. A lot of different fats
(18:42):
have some form of like a back off call, like
you know, get out of my face.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
On a kind of call.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
So we can see similarities across the way that they
interact with each other and you know, analogies to the
way that we as humans interact with each other, which
I always think is really to to sort of think
about from a you know, evolutionary perspective and sort of
how we can can find ourselves in nature.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It's funny because I've been doing the podcast now for
quite a few years, and it's amazing how many different
animals have a lot of human qualities and mannerisms and
stuff like that that that are being noticed by researchers.
So it makes sense. Was I gonna say about the
(19:31):
darn it? And I lost my train of thought and that,
Oh well, maybe I'll think about it or come back
to me in a few minutes. So, oh, I know
what it was. I was just gonna come in and
and the jamming for the echolocation thing that they do.
I wonder if the military got the idea to do
(19:51):
some of that stuff, you know, with their military stuff
from the bats doing it, wouldn't that be interesting?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah? Maybe, I mean there are is interest.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, I mean it's yeah, the way that we can
sort of Yeah, interfere with sound is to say, principles basically,
you think.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
That's interesting. I don't know, I just made me think
about that, you know, some of the jamming stuff. You know,
So when it comes to obviously bats are are going
after you know, insects and stuff like that. Birds also
go after insects. So when it comes to a ban's
flight abilities, how do those kind of compare to a
(20:32):
bird or an insects flight abilities? I mean, do they
have a better you know, obviously they can get up
to some pretty good speeds. I mean, do they have
some pretty good turning radius of stuff at those speeds?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Uh? So, again, it depends on the species.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And I'm going to say that a lot because bats
are just so diverse that across a lot of these
these interesting things that really just depends, you know, which
which type of that talking about?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Well, yeah, I would imagine a smaller bat, like the
small brown bat obviously, is probably going to have a
little bit more maneuverability than say, oh bad, you know,
one of the fruit bats, especially since the fruit bat
you know, eats fruit and really doesn't I don't know
if they eat insects too, but you know, if they don't.
Then why would they really have as good of a
maneuvering ability except for to miss you know, the trees
(21:22):
and stuff like that when they're flying.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I guess, yeah, yeah, so yeah, so that's.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Just kind of orient everybody.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
So bats are cool because when we think about their wings,
their wings are basically hands, so that you know, that
whole wing.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
And all that membrane, all those big long bones.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Those are all these long fingerbones that have elongated and
then have the membrane the skin between them. And that
is interesting and special with bats because it means that
a bat wing has a lot of flexibility. So if
you think about just the way that we can move
(22:08):
our fingers and right, we can move individual fingers individually,
we can bend you know, some fingers, but not all
of them, and so.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Bats can do the same thing. And so that gives them.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
A lot of control over the shape of their wing,
which is going to you know, have implications for the
way that they are interacting with the air as they
are moving through the sky. And so they are if
you if you watch us slow motion bat in flight,
they kind of have this almost more of a scooping
(22:41):
motion than a flapping motion that we associate with birds
where they're kind of you know, sort of sort of
swimming through the air almost if you slow it down enough.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Oh okay, yeah, I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
So it just it gives them this a lot of flexibility,
which is what helps them for many of these bats
be so maneuverable because they can, you know, right, they
can they can change just a tiny part of their
wing as opposed to having to move the whole wing
to maybe adjust their positioning. How well they do that
(23:16):
depends on, you know, how long their wings are. So
bats that have really broad, short wings tend to be
better at maneuvering in tight spaces. That's what we see
the wing shapes we see in a lot of fruit bats,
particularly the smaller fruit bats. It's the types of wing
shapes that we see in bats that live in dense forests.
(23:40):
But then some bats have you know, these long, narrow wings,
and so those types of bats they're not quite as maneuverable,
but they can move really fast in straight, you know,
straight directions. So we tend to see that in more
types of bats that are found you know, flying in
open space or that are migrating where they need to
(24:02):
be able to fly long distances and be energy efficient.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
We tend to see these long arrow wings.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
So it's cool is you can sort of look at
a bat's wing shape and sort of guess what sort
of you know, behavior it might be doing and where
it might be living, simply based on sort of the
way their wings are shaped, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, that is pretty cool. I didn't realize that you
could tell where they lived from the wing shape. That's interesting.
So why do you think that bats? I can actually
probably come up with a couple of these. Why do
you think bats have such a bad reputation? And what
can we do to maybe change the public perception about bats?
And like I said, I can think of a couple.
(24:43):
I mean, you have Dracula, you have rabies, you have
I mean, I love Halloween, but you know bats, which
is Halloween bats? You know stuff like that. It's all associaded.
So I can kind of understand, you know, a little bit,
why they would have the bad reputation. I guess, But
(25:04):
what what what's your opinion and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, so yeah, I mean that's something I've thought about.
And I'm not a social scientist, but I think there
is sort of this element of you know, as humans,
we are you know, we are daytime animals. We are
highly visual, we need to be able to see things,
and so kind of any animal that is more active
(25:29):
at night, which is a time frame you know that
we are already you know, evolutionarily designed to be a
little bit more on edge and cautious for and so
you know, there's sort of this idea, Yeah, any animal
is sort of active at night that we can't really see,
you know, there's always gonna be a little bit of
sort of that you know, instinct to be a little
(25:51):
bit cautious.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
And then I think just sort of fear of kind
of unknown anything.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
And so you know, bats are not something that thast
people are interacting with regularly, and that is true for
you know, across time. And I will also say that
a lot of you know, what I tend to think
of and I think what what you sort of mentioned
(26:17):
in terms of our perceptions of bats are very based
in Western society. Other cultures have very different views of bats,
and I think it just depends on the way that
they've interacted with bats.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So, you know, Western society, European society, we've you know,
the sort of witches and the.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Sort of association with nighttime, and then the links to
religion and to things like the devil and which is
you know, that's that's sort of one set of culture.
But then other cultures have very different relationships.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Well you know, yeah, Asians their food right, Asians there
are a food source.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Someone's not as common as we think it is.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
I would I would know, I've kind of I was
thinking about that. I was reading by I'm like, I
don't know how common that is.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
But yeah, I mean it is, it isn't It is
something that it is a concern in terms of conservation,
particularly for the flying foxes, just because they are these
larger animals.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And actually most of the hunting that.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Occurs for bats is less focused on hunting to eat
them and it's more about hunting to protect crops.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
And those sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
So yeah, so and of course it depends on the culture,
but yeah, I mean different cultures, Like I think again,
it's just sort of this idea of the unknown. And
then because there are so many different types of bats,
and and depending on where in the world you are,
the types of bats you have are different, and so
just that can also lead to a lot of confusion
and sort of uncertainty.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I mean, I think, you know, I work mostly in.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
North America, and you know, talking with people, the number
of times you know, people have asked me about, oh,
you know, are you worried about vampire bats, And it's like, well, no,
because they all live here.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Well, I was gonna ask you, you know, some of
the bigger myths that people believe about bats, you know
that you kind of help to correct in your book,
And that's actually one of them is a vampire bat,
and just exactly what they do and what they are.
I think the other one you just mentioned, actually, you
know one another thing is is the myth about the crops,
because people think that bats and farmers, I think bats
(28:32):
are going to destroy their crops, when in actuality, they're
actually helping the farmers because they eat the insects.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, eat the insects.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
A lot of bats, particularly in tropical regions, are very
important pollinators and important seed dispersers.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So yeah, I mean a lot of it.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
And yes, it's hard to and that's some of the challenges,
especially for some of the flying foxes and sort of uh.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, unlinking kind of you know, you know that it's
not the flying boxes that are causing damage.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It's you know, X Y Z issues, and these issues
are very complicated, and so working with these communities and
sort of and it's just true across you know, across
the world, like working with people who are living and
coexisting with these animals and and sort of figuring out
how to do that is key. And a lot of
it just comes down to, Yeah, because they're so mysterious,
(29:31):
it's really easy for you know, these myths to pop
up and it's.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Really hard to counter that.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Well, exactly like the vampire bad they don't go around
sucking people's blood.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
That does not.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Happen, you know they Yeah, now they do. They do
from animals though, get that's what they feed off of.
But they don't go around sucking people's blood like you
see in the movies or something like that.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
No, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're only found in Central and
South America. If you you are anywhere else in the world,
you don't need to worry about encountering a vampire bat.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
And actually I always think it's interesting because and he
did mention sort of Dracula and yeah, the idea, right
that I do these vampires turn into bats. And my
understanding is that that myth sort of started with Bram
Stoker's Dracula, and he got the inspiration when European explorers
(30:29):
were sending back reports about these giant and I'm saying
giant in sort of quotes, giant blood stuffing bats, and
so that court is like, you know, which came first,
sort of, the vampire bats were sort of described by
you know, to Europeans first and then and then that's
where we linked them to vampires, like you knows, as
(30:53):
a monster, which I just think is sort of interesting,
like the way humans sort of the way we integrate,
you know, what we're learning out into our stories and
our you know, folklore.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
And all that kind of stuff, right right, well, right exactly.
I mean we're even bringing our kids up with that
when you look at I mean, at least uh like
Hotel Transylvanian stuff. At least they've made Dracula in them
a little bit nicer, so you know, and not the
blood fucking things that you know, they're nice, they're nice.
So yeah, it's funny though, like you said, how we
(31:24):
uh turned that into that kind of stuff. So so
one thing though, that has been happening and that I
was reading about in your book was the white nose
syndrome that has devastated some bat populations and is continuing
to devastate bat populations. So what can you explain a
(31:46):
little bit more about what white nose syndrome is and
what it's doing to the bad populations and uh the
hopes you guys have that for bat conservation efforts and
that respect.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, So white nose syndrome is this fungal disease that
impacts higrinating bats in mostly temperate systems, so places like
North America and then we sometimes see it maybe in Europe,
and it's caused by this.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Uh it's essentially a soil focus.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
It lives in the dirt in caves and uh it's
called pseudo gymnoascis destructans, which is a mouse bowl, so
you we sometimes call it just PD for short. And
basically what happens is when bats go into caves to hibernate,
they are you know, they're turning off the furnace, they're
(32:46):
shutting down you know, all.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Non essential body functions.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
They slow down their heart rates, they slow down their
temper they lower their temperatures. Uh, they slow down their
breathing and they also you know, sort of hit the
pause button on.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Things like immune response.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
And so this fungus is then able to when it
gets on the bat skin, it's a type of fungus
that grows on tissue, and it essentially hijacks that you know,
physiology and starts growing on their wing skin and then
on their noses, which is where the name comes from,
(33:28):
and then on their ears. And what happens is the
growing of this fungus basically causes bats to wake up from.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Hibernation more frequently than they would otherwise.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
And if we remember that hibernation, the reason that's are
doing hibernation is to save energy.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
They're this tiny animal.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
They can only pack on so much fat for winter,
and so every time they wake up, they are having
to burn a bunch of that energy that they have saved.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
And so what ends up happening is.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
This fungal infection disrupts their hibernation, causes them to wake
up more frequently, and they burned through you know, these
fat reserves faster than they would otherwise, and so that
leads them to starve or to you know, wake up
and try to find food before winter is over when
(34:22):
there's no insects out and about.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So it was.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
First discovered in two thousand and six in upstate New
York and has since spread to something like thirty five
or thirty six states. Not all places have necessarily seen
bats infected by the disease, so when it's actually an
(34:47):
infection in a bat, that is what it's called white
nose syndrome. Otherwise it's just sort of these detections of
that focused in the cave environment, and it did lead
to for some of the bat that were most affected,
really large population decline, something between like eighty five to
ninety nine percent of declines for some of these species
(35:10):
have been linked to this disease, which is depressing. But
what is sort of, you know, what I try to
hold on to as a bad scientist, as a person
who's interested in conservation, and you know, I think hope
is a really important piece of conservation that we need
(35:30):
to hold on to, is that while there's been these
huge declines, we do still see these species getting by,
not in the same numbers that they used to. I,
you know, have had the pleasure to work in some
of these places that white nose hit pretty hard, Like
(35:52):
you know, up in Michigan in the Upper Peninsula, but
you know, we were still seeing them.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
They're still coming back, they're still coming to hibername. I
helped count bats.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
At a local church here not far from where I
live in Pennsylvania. And the past few years, the little
brown bats, which is one of the species that were
hit particularly hard, they're not at the you know, several
thousand that they used to be at, but they've been
holding steadity, which is something and and.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
There's definitely hope that.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
You know, the bats that are surviving that maybe that
they have some some genetic variation that makes them more
likely to survive. A lot of the in the spaces
that I have worked in, some of the shift has
gone from you know, how do we you know, prevent
(36:47):
or clean up these fungus, which is a very difficult task,
to more of how can we support the populations that
are surviving.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
You know, what can we do to you know.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
These bats, you know they're having to go when they're
dealing with this challenge every winter, how.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Can we make the rest of their lives easier?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Right? Right, So things like supporting you know, native plant
populations that are going to support native insects and provide
food for these bats, make it easier for them to
get as fat as possible before hibernation, you know, providing
important you know habitat both before hibernation, over the summer, right,
(37:28):
all the points of the life cycle. So there's definitely like,
you know, a multi prongum approach for you know, how
can we best support these bat populations and sort of
continue to try to figure out like exactly what's going on.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
We're always learning new things. I think, you know, since the.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Book was published, a paper came out that actually showed
that the fungus that causes whit no syndrome there's actually.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Maybe two species of the fungus.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
So there's even you know, right, we're still learning more
stuff about what's going on and how this works and
how we can you know, support bats, right just try
and tie Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
So is that some of this stuff the same thing
that like ordinary people can help to do to protect
bats in their own communities. I mean like maybe putting
out you know, habitats or trying to help ensure you know,
like the plants and stuff like that in their communities
where the bats may be, uh, you know, having that
kind of stuff around to help out as well.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah, for sure. I mean I think.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I mean one one thing I will always advocate for
because it helps not just bats, but helps lots of uh,
you know, native wildlife is you know, having native gardens,
having native yards, you know, having a variety of plants
and structure to you know, your garden as much as
(38:50):
you can, you know, within whatever constraints you have of
your you know, backyard size, et cetera. Things like uh,
you know, if you can leave dead leaves, if you
can leave tree snags, you know, if they're in places
where it's not going to be unsafe, those types of
(39:11):
places can be really important habitat for bats and for
lots of other you know, native wildlife. I think there's
people always ask about bathouses, which I think can be
a great thing. Particularly you know, if you have bats
in an area where we don't want them, you know,
we don't want to just kick them out and give
(39:32):
them nowhere to go, and so bathouses can be a
great way to sort of mitigate when we have to
kind of coexist with bats. Just making sure that people
I try to encourage people to you know, do their research,
make sure they you know, have an idea of what
species of bat they might have in their area. Different
bats like different you know, living habitats. So some bath's
(39:54):
like it really hot, some baths like it cooler. Some
bats like lots of space so they can cram themselves
and a thousand of their best friends into one spot.
Some baths prefer to you know, have solo apartments. So
just kind of knowing, you know, what's in your area
can be really helpful if you are if people are
interested in bathouses. And then honestly, just you know, we've
(40:16):
talked a lot about sort of bat myths and that,
you know, misconceptions, and I think just sort of you know,
spreading the good word about why baths are important and
sort of you know their role in our environment, and
you know they they deserve to live and be in
spaces as well, and you know, making it so that
(40:37):
we can safely co exist with them as much as
possible goes a long.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Way, right. Well, yeah, exactly exactly. Now, another thing that
you mentioned in the books, or excuse me, in the
book was about bats having a unique immune system. What
do you think studying bands could teach us about human health?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Yeah, so this is a much newer area of kind
of research, I think, especially as we learn more about
and have more access to a lot of genetic tools.
But we do know that bats, yeah, have these these
really robust immune systems. They can sort of coexist without
(41:22):
uh you know, necessarily experiencing side effects from a wide
range of different types of viruses and bacteria.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
We think some of that might be linked to their
ability to fly.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Uh So, one of the hypotheses out there about like
why bats are so good at this is this flight
as fever, so fever when we get sick, having a
fever is our body's way of trying to fight off infection,
and bats they are pretty much always operating at these
(41:56):
higher temperatures, which are much harder for bacteria and for
these pathogens to survive at.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Different There's just so many different types.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Of that that they probably all have slightly different variations
and the way that they're able to deal with infection.
One thing that I think has come out in the
last few years, and another hypothesis is that so when
we get sick, when people, our humans get sick, a
lot of the damage that happens to us when we
(42:28):
are sick is actually not from the pathogen itself, but
it's from our bodies attempt to fight off the pathogens.
So things like inflammation where we actually are our own
cells end up causing damage to ourselves.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Bats have ways that their cells and different cell.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Pathways sort of circumvent some of those inflammatory things, so
they are able to sort of be more targeted potentially
in the way they fight off pathogens without necessarily having negative.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Effects on themselves. Standing sort of how these pathways work.
If there's certain.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Like molecules or things that are happening that set off
these pathways, you know, I think there's some hope that
like we can sort of colloct those ideas to develop
you know, drug treatments or things like that kind of
as like a biomimicry sort of approach is one thing that.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I think people are hoping.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
It's also true for not just immune response, but also
aging and longevy that's live exceptionally long lives for their
body size, and so there's a lot of research looking into,
you know, what's going on at the cellular level that's
making it so that they you know, as their cells divide,
(43:45):
they don't break down at these certain rates for you
know what sort of cellular pathways are minimizing the effect
of aging on cells, and how can we you know,
learn from those and take advantage of those to apply
them in in certain circumstances.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Right, right, So what do you think is next for
you in your research or your writing? Do you have
any plans for another book or researching more on a
particular species or what's up next?
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Yeah, so I've actually I will be starting in a
couple of weeks as a professor at a small local
arts college here in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
So I'll be looking to.
Speaker 7 (44:31):
Do a lot more teaching and diving back into doing
some hopefully some field work exploring some more local bats
and looking at how they react to olfactory queues and
their environments.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
And then I, you know, continue to write, I guessed
guest write or back Conservation International's blog, and you know,
maybe give me another ten ten years and I'm sure
we'll have enough material to write a whole new batbook
with all the things that we'll have and learned since.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
The first one.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Exactly because research keeps getting done, so there's got to
be new stuff out there. Well, as long as you're
including those beautiful photographs again, because I'm telling you. Those
really made a difference with the book because they were
just gorgeous. I loved looking at them.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
So yeah, I am really grateful to particularly to Rock
Betton and Jerry Benton and then Pryce Sewell who donated
a lot of those photos that are just yes, stunning
beautiful photography of bats that really capture the personality that
we see exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Now, if somebody wanted to learn more about you, or
if they would like to get your book The Weird
and Wonderful World of Bats, where can they find more
information about you? And where can they find your book?
Or can both be found on the same site?
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, a little bit of both. So I have.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
My website is Alison Brocott, and I'm also active on
social media, particularly Instagram and TikTok as alib underscore Batgirl,
where I share a lot of fun videos and things
about bats. I believe all those places have links to
(46:18):
the book, but I like to encourage you pretty much.
I everywhere books are sold, but one of my favorite
places to buy books is bookshop dot org, where you
can select a local or independent bookstore to benefit from
your purchases while still getting to the benefit of buying online.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Oh nice. Well, Allison, I really appreciate you coming on
the podcast tonight and sharing all this information about bats.
I hope but the listeners out there found it as
informational as I did. I love learning, you know, about
new things and stuff like that, so it was great
having you on to talk about bats and dispel some
(46:54):
of the myths and misunderstandings about them.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Yeah. No, thank you won for me. I mean I
could talk about bats for hours, So that's the hard part.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Well, you know, if new research and stuff comes out,
maybe we won't have to say about having you again
at a later time, you know, in a few years
and discuss some of the new stuff about bats.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Absolutely, all right, Well, again I appreciate you being on
the podcast tonight. I'm just gonna go ahead and announce
my next couple of podcasts that it'll be coming up
next month. You're welcome to stay on why I do that,
But I also know you know, different time zone, you're
a little bit later, so you are also welcome to
(47:38):
jump off why I announce those. That's perfectly fine. So
and again I appreciate you being on tonight. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, thank you. I think I'll go ahead and hop off,
but have a good rest of your night.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
All right, Thank you you too, thank you all right
by now all right everybody, so listen, just got off.
It was great talk talking with her about bats and
learning all that information that she shared with us. And again, guys,
don't forget if you want to learn more about bats,
go on out there and buy Allison's book and give it. Agreed,
(48:15):
There's a lot of good information in there. And like
I said, those photographs are just stunning. So the kudos
for those guys that took them in and donated those pictures.
All right, So the next upcoming podcasts, I think you
guys are going to like. The next one, it's on
August seventh, and I'm going to have Aaron mainly manly
I'm hoping and pronouncing her name correct or his name
(48:39):
there with Pet Partners. They are going to be coming
on to talk with me about Pet Partners, which is
a therapy or service dog organization, and one of the
things they're coming on to talk about is the Pet
Partner's World's largest Pet Walk, which is going to be
(48:59):
happening on Saturday, September twenty seventh. So we're going to
be talking about that, and we're also going to be
talking about Pet Partners and their love of pet therapy animals.
It is therapy and that service, and how you know
you can volunteer with your pet, you know, become a
Pet Partner therapy animal volunteer, How you can help support
(49:22):
their mission, request visits from pets to go to nursing homes,
things like that, hospitals, all sorts of information about Pet
Partners that we'll be finding out. So I am looking
forward to having Aaron coming on the show. And then
on August twenty first, I'm going to have Tanya from
(49:46):
Turpentine Creek Sanctuary. I'm pretty sure Tanya is the founder
of the sanctuary, so be coming on to talk with
me about Turpentine Creek, which is a big cat sanctuary
for like the cats that are being sold and traded
(50:06):
in the exotic animal trade and you know, the ones
used in the movies and stuff like that. So they
are a sanctuary where a lot of these big cats
can go and they are helping to educate the public
and they're trying to end the exotic animal trade and
they're doing a lot of great stuff, education, preservation, all
(50:29):
sorts of good stuff they do rescue, some animal care,
you know, helping out with enforcement stuff like that. So
they are also helping bears as well. So Tanya's going
to be coming on and she's going to be telling
us all about Turpentine Creek Wildlife Sanctuary or why I'm sorry,
(50:51):
Wildlife Refuge. So I'm looking forward to talking with her. Yes,
Tany is president founder, so I'm looking forward to having
her on to be really good to talk with her
about the cats and stuff like that. So again, guys,
don't forget to come on back in a couple of
weeks and join me on August seventh for the Pet
(51:11):
Partners and then on August twenty first for the Turpentine
Creek Animal Refuge, and I'll learn a little bit more
about those two organizations and the animals and stuff. So
I hope you guys enjoyed tonight's podcast, and I hope
you guys learned a lot, and I hope you all
stay safe out there this weekend and don't be getting
(51:33):
into too much trouble. And excuse my dog down here
for whining, I think as people are coming out. So anyway,
you all have a good weekend and stay safe out
there and come on back in a couple of weeks
for the next podcast.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
By now
Good evening everybody, and welcome to calling out creatures. As
most of you that listen and know, I am your host, Lori,
and tonight I have a really good podcast. It is
Batty for Bats, a dive into the weird and wonderful
world of bats. And my guest tonight is Alison Brokaw.
(00:23):
She's a behavior ecologist and a bat scientist. And Alison
is going to impart all sorts of wisdom on us
tonight about bats and hopefully to spell a few myths
and stuff that are are you going around about them?
And give us some more information and hopefully we'll all
(00:44):
learn a little bit tonight. So Alison, thank you so
much for being on the podcast tonight. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Of course, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
It's great. Why don't you go ahead and it's just
start out and tell us a little bit about yourself.
I mean, what first inspired your passion for studying bats?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So, like you said, I'm a behavioral ecologist and bat scientist,
which basically means for the behavioral ecology, I'm interested in
why animals do the things they do, and particularly have
been interested in that. I grew up in sort of
(01:24):
rural Pennsylvania, and we would frequently see bats out flying
around in the evenings, especially in the summertime, when we'd
be out on our deck to have dinner, and my
parents would always sort of point them out and be like, look, missus,
bat has come to join us for dinner. So I've
always been surrounded my nature.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Always really loved seeing animals in the wild, and kind
of knew from a pretty early age that I wanted
to be a zoologist or a wildlife biologist.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And then as I was going through you know, college.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I just sort of started to learn about bats and
just realized how much we still didn't really know about them,
and how many sort of gaps and things there were
still to discover, and what we know about bats and
why they do what they do, and just how many
there are. And even after ten plus years of studying bats,
(02:21):
you know, I'm still learning new things. My colleagues were
all still always learning new things about bats, and it's
just it's just very exciting and.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You know, keeps us curious and interested.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I apologize for my dog in here barking. He's okay,
I wasn't gonna bring it up, but we're on the
road and we're in an irvy and as people are
in there eating when I'm doing my podcast, and he
misses them, so you might hear a bark or wine.
I'm so sorry. Anyway, got that out of the way
in case you guys hearing. So I hope y'all can
put up with it. It's an animal podcast, everybody, So anyway,
(02:56):
just letting you know that's what the bark or the
wine is. It's nothing bad or anything like that. He's
just missing his peoples, So.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Okay, sorry.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And I think it's really cool that you wanted to
study bats, because so many people are afraid of bats,
you know, and and all the myths and the misrepresentations
and stuff about them, and so you know, I don't
think as many people are interested in finding things out
about them. So I'm glad that there are some researchers
(03:27):
out there that are looking into bats and finding out
all these really cool things about him. Was there actually
a particular bat species or a field experience that made
you want to write the book that you wrote, The
Weird and Wonderful World of Bats, which we are going
to talk a little bit about as well. What inspired
(03:48):
your book?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, so I would say, not necessarily anything in particular.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I mean, I've definitely had just in my research career.
You know, there's.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Some of my some of my favorite field experiences, one
of will sidetrack, but one of my favorite species of
bat is the wrinkle faced bat, which I encourage your
listeners to google because they're very hard to just picture.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Uh, they are aptly named. They're just so weird and strange.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And I remember the first time I got to see
one in person, and you're just like, what am I
looking at? Well, as far as with the book, so
I have been involved, particularly as I was in grad school,
became really passionate about just sort of science communication in general,
and how we can you know, share all this you know,
(04:44):
sometimes complicated and difficult to understand science with people who
are not scientists.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Or not scientists in our specific fields.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And so I got really involved with with sort of
talking about bats and just kind of realizing that kind of,
as you say, so many people sort of have these
these misconceptions about them. Most people have never seen a
bat up close. You know, It's not something that we
are usually encountering on our day to day lives, and
(05:14):
so they're just sort of this mysterious, you know, thing
flying around in the night, and so being able to
just sort of show people like, you know, here's what
a bat looks like, here's this beautiful diversity of bats.
And then, particularly with COVID nineteen and a lot of
the discussions around sort of bats and diseases, I was
(05:37):
approached by the publishers sort of saying like, hey, would
you be interested in writing this book about bats so
that we can sort of show, you know, all the
good things about bats and kind of really talk about
why they are special and unique and you know that
we don't need to be afraid of them, and the
things that we can learn from them that bats can
you know, tell us about.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Life and evil and immune systems.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
And flights and you know, all these fascinating things just
about our world that we can learn from that. So
that was kind of the main impetus for sort of
writing this book. And it was very fun to get
to dive into, you know, all the things that I
was familiar with, but also you know, I was learning
new things as well as I was I was diving
into the various types of research around that.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Well, I'll tell you it's a really good book. I,
you know, received the copy and I read through it
and I there's so much information in this book about
bats and all the different things you know that you
can possibly think of to know about them, and the
different species and varieties of bats, and the wrinkle face
Man is definitely one you want to look up because
(06:47):
they are very interesting looking. And the pictures, the photographs
in the book are just so good. They're just beautiful
pictures in the book. I just thought some of the ones,
like where the bats were swooping down to get a
drink of water and you could see the beads of
water and stuff from where they were grabbing the water.
(07:07):
It was so cool to see some of these photographs,
you guys, So I highly recommend if you want to
know more about bats, you go get Alison's book. It's
it's well worth.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It, so very good read. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So with that being said, what is the most surprising
thing in your research that you have learned about bat senses?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, it's a good question. So I'll sort of lead
into this question by giving a little more background. So,
my my main interest besides sort of antal behavior, has
been sensory biology. So how animals sort of were us
use their senses, and my research has focused on how
bats use.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Their sense of smell.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And so, you know, we think about bats, you know,
echolocation is being this really important, uh sense that bats
are using. They're using sound to get around, which is
hugely fascinating. And people, you know, my colleagues and people
who study bats, like, we're still figuring out exactly how
that brains process this complicated information and and do it
(08:19):
so quickly. And then my my interests were in how
bads use their sense of smell. But what actually I
found really interesting when I was writing the book was
also learning more about how that's see.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So we've all heard lead, you.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Know, blind as a bat sort of idioms, and uh,
just to sort of clear the air, that all bats
have eyes.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
They can all see.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
There are no blind bats, at least as far as
we know, and they.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Are actually fairly good at seeing. Some of them probably
can see about.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
As well as we can, maybe slightly better, particularly considering
that they are using their vision in the dark. But
there are also bats that can see into color spectrums
that we humans cannot see. So we have some evidence
that bats can see ultraviolet light, so kind of beyond
(09:21):
blue into this sort of ultra violet spectrum where a
lot of insects tend to see colors. We see that
maybe in our bats that are feeding on flowers, and
that may actually be fairly more widespread than we imagine.
And then yet that they have these you know, they
have so many of these specific types of receptors in
(09:44):
their eyes that they are just so much better at
seeing in the dark than humans are. So I just
feel like that's something that we always I don't know, humans,
we're so visually oriented that it's confusing to us that
animals can see in the dark. And so it turns
out that bat there are not so terrible.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
At it, right, Well, yeah, I mean exactly. I mean
cats obviously see pretty well in the dark. I don't
think horses see so well in the dark. But yeah,
there's quite a few different species of animals out there
that see in the dark. And I would have imagined
that bats would be able to see in the dark,
considering they're out at night for the most part. So yeah, hmm, yeah,
(10:24):
that's very interesting. I know a lot of people you
don't think about their echo location that you know, the
sonars and sounds that they're sending out to you know,
make sure they don't fly into things, and you know,
to find their insect prey and stuff like that. You know,
I think that's probably more so what people associate with
bats than of course the sight, I guess.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
But yeah, and it makes sense too.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
So bats can see, but if you're trying to you know,
you are flying at some relatively high speed trying to
spot a very tiny insect that also flying at a
relatively high speed in the dark, it makes sense that
sound is a much more reliable sense than vision, and
so bats have gotten very, very good at using sound.
(11:15):
They can some bats can hear insects walking essentially on leaves.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Some bats can they use the Doppler effect.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
So when you hear like a like an ambulance or
like a police siren, you know how it sounds like
it kind of it's going up and down in frequency, right,
That's actually a function of physics and the way that
sound waves move that the frequency of that sound is
actually constant, but we hear it shift, and so bats
can take advantage of essentially that phenomenon to make calculations
(11:49):
about how fast an insect is moving and where it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Has moved to wow.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah, So that it is this Doppler shift compensation basically,
so they're they are sending out a sign at one frequency,
but their brains are tuned to hear a different frequency,
and so they can be really specialized at which frequencies
they can hear and how well they hear them. And
different bats have different you know, they're tuned to these
(12:16):
different frequencies depending on the type of prey that they
are hunting or the the echulocuation sounds that they or
themselves are making. They're all very specialized, which is great
because it means we can ease drop on them and
actually know what species are flying around just based on
the sounds that they are making.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, well so they have excuse me, they
have specific sounds too. Is it specific to each individual
like bad or would? Is it just specific to the
variety of bad?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
A little bit of both, sou Each individual species of
bat has its own characteristic frequency that it makes its
echolocation calls at, or a set of frequencies. So some
bats are you know, they might start their echolocation call
at one pitch and then they sort of slide down
into a lower pitch over the course of the call,
(13:12):
and we can now using ultrasonic microphones, we can visualize
these calls into what we call spectrograms and visually, and
then you know, using more complex computer sort of transformations
and calculations, we can actually assign species to these calls,
(13:33):
so different species have different slightly different calls.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And then there is.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Also some evidence that bats themselves may be able to,
you know, have some individual flexibility. So the same way
that you know, I can you know, pick off the
phone and my mom is going to know that it's
me on the phone because she recognized with my boys,
bats are probably able to do some of the same
things with the bats that they themselves are in our
(14:00):
acting with and kind of recognize you know, familiar voices.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
All right, well, right, like mom and babies.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Yeah, because yeah, so I know, and that was actually
something I was getting something I was actually going to
ask you about, was about you were talking about bats
like singing or arguing. So is that kind of you know,
something like that, and then you know about is that
kind of like their communication social behavior type of stuff or.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Is it?
Speaker 6 (14:33):
Yes, So the egalocation calls are separate from their social calls.
So the application calls are they there are some they
can vary.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
But they are pretty predictable within species. And if you think.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
About what factor using application calls for, it's for a
very specific reason. They're trying to detect an object or
an insect or you know, a tree.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So those tend to stay relatively consistent.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
But then, just like pretty much every other mammal, almost
every other animal, bats have this whole range of other
sounds that they can make. So we called those collectively
their social calls. And that's basically just any vocalization that
isn't a like a location call, and so.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, they can make all sorts of noises.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
If if people have ever you know, been outside of
a bat roost or been near a roost of bats,
they can be very noisy. It's a lot of squeaking,
a lot of shrills, of hissing.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Those are all we would call social calls.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
So that's the bats sort of interacting with each other,
whether it's to say like hey, back off, you're in
my spot, or you know, a mother trying to you know,
I find for pup after coming home from hunting.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And then you mentioned.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
The singing, so bats song, right, we think of that
as being very human.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
There are only a few other mammals that we know of.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
That produce songs as being defined as these you know,
melodic changing of tone and.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Sound and so other animals that we know of that saying.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Are whales, but then also bats, So there's actually several
species of bats that produce these songs.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Most of them are used for courtship.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
So these bats are out the male they're out there
singing love songs to attract females, and then sometimes they
also use songs the same way that birds do as
a way to sort of say, hey, this is my territory,
you know, if you are another male or another bat
of a different social group, like back off, this place
(16:50):
is mine. So they're using songs in a lot of
different ways, very similar to birds.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Okay, well that would make sense, you, I guess, and
I know I was reading, you know, like with the
interactions and stuff that some bats have, like with the
feeding and stuff like that, that they're kind of particular
sharing food and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, yeah, so that was something that we sort of
learned not that long ago.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
But they will they'll eat drop on each other.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
So if they you know, if I'm a bat out
flying around at night, and I hear another bat making
what's called a feeding does, which is a specific variant
of an equlication call that usually indicates that a bat
has tried to grab an insect. Pretty good indication that
you know, they're actively hunting, actively feeding. You know, I
(17:43):
might feel to if I'm this bat and I hear that,
I might be like, you know what, that sounds like
there's some good eating over there. Like I'm gonna head
that way, and then they will Sometimes the Mexican retail
bats in particular, a species found in.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Southwestern and some western parts of the United States, they
will uh produce.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
A call that actually jams the echolocation calls of their
fellow bats, so.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Like, yeah, that's mine. Yeah, so the you know, they yeah, they've.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Got a whole There's a lot of complexity in the
way that they interact with each other. Different species have
some different different things that they do. As far as
we know, I think the like the retail bats are
the only ones that we know of that have these
interference calls, but a lot of them have a lot
of different fats do songs. A lot of different fats
(18:42):
have some form of like a back off call, like
you know, get out of my face.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
On a kind of call.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
So we can see similarities across the way that they
interact with each other and you know, analogies to the
way that we as humans interact with each other, which
I always think is really to to sort of think
about from a you know, evolutionary perspective and sort of
how we can can find ourselves in nature.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It's funny because I've been doing the podcast now for
quite a few years, and it's amazing how many different
animals have a lot of human qualities and mannerisms and
stuff like that that that are being noticed by researchers.
So it makes sense. Was I gonna say about the
(19:31):
darn it? And I lost my train of thought and that,
Oh well, maybe I'll think about it or come back
to me in a few minutes. So, oh, I know
what it was. I was just gonna come in and
and the jamming for the echolocation thing that they do.
I wonder if the military got the idea to do
(19:51):
some of that stuff, you know, with their military stuff
from the bats doing it, wouldn't that be interesting?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah? Maybe, I mean there are is interest.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, I mean it's yeah, the way that we can
sort of Yeah, interfere with sound is to say, principles basically,
you think.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
That's interesting. I don't know, I just made me think
about that, you know, some of the jamming stuff. You know,
So when it comes to obviously bats are are going
after you know, insects and stuff like that. Birds also
go after insects. So when it comes to a ban's
flight abilities, how do those kind of compare to a
(20:32):
bird or an insects flight abilities? I mean, do they
have a better you know, obviously they can get up
to some pretty good speeds. I mean, do they have
some pretty good turning radius of stuff at those speeds?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Uh? So, again, it depends on the species.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And I'm going to say that a lot because bats
are just so diverse that across a lot of these
these interesting things that really just depends, you know, which
which type of that talking about?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Well, yeah, I would imagine a smaller bat, like the
small brown bat obviously, is probably going to have a
little bit more maneuverability than say, oh bad, you know,
one of the fruit bats, especially since the fruit bat
you know, eats fruit and really doesn't I don't know
if they eat insects too, but you know, if they don't.
Then why would they really have as good of a
maneuvering ability except for to miss you know, the trees
(21:22):
and stuff like that when they're flying.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I guess, yeah, yeah, so yeah, so that's.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Just kind of orient everybody.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
So bats are cool because when we think about their wings,
their wings are basically hands, so that you know, that
whole wing.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
And all that membrane, all those big long bones.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Those are all these long fingerbones that have elongated and
then have the membrane the skin between them. And that
is interesting and special with bats because it means that
a bat wing has a lot of flexibility. So if
you think about just the way that we can move
(22:08):
our fingers and right, we can move individual fingers individually,
we can bend you know, some fingers, but not all
of them, and so.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Bats can do the same thing. And so that gives them.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
A lot of control over the shape of their wing,
which is going to you know, have implications for the
way that they are interacting with the air as they
are moving through the sky. And so they are if
you if you watch us slow motion bat in flight,
they kind of have this almost more of a scooping
(22:41):
motion than a flapping motion that we associate with birds
where they're kind of you know, sort of sort of
swimming through the air almost if you slow it down enough.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Oh okay, yeah, I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
So it just it gives them this a lot of flexibility,
which is what helps them for many of these bats
be so maneuverable because they can, you know, right, they
can they can change just a tiny part of their
wing as opposed to having to move the whole wing
to maybe adjust their positioning. How well they do that
(23:16):
depends on, you know, how long their wings are. So
bats that have really broad, short wings tend to be
better at maneuvering in tight spaces. That's what we see
the wing shapes we see in a lot of fruit bats,
particularly the smaller fruit bats. It's the types of wing
shapes that we see in bats that live in dense forests.
(23:40):
But then some bats have you know, these long, narrow wings,
and so those types of bats they're not quite as maneuverable,
but they can move really fast in straight, you know,
straight directions. So we tend to see that in more
types of bats that are found you know, flying in
open space or that are migrating where they need to
(24:02):
be able to fly long distances and be energy efficient.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
We tend to see these long arrow wings.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
So it's cool is you can sort of look at
a bat's wing shape and sort of guess what sort
of you know, behavior it might be doing and where
it might be living, simply based on sort of the
way their wings are shaped, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, that is pretty cool. I didn't realize that you
could tell where they lived from the wing shape. That's interesting.
So why do you think that bats? I can actually
probably come up with a couple of these. Why do
you think bats have such a bad reputation? And what
can we do to maybe change the public perception about bats?
And like I said, I can think of a couple.
(24:43):
I mean, you have Dracula, you have rabies, you have
I mean, I love Halloween, but you know bats, which
is Halloween bats? You know stuff like that. It's all associaded.
So I can kind of understand, you know, a little bit,
why they would have the bad reputation. I guess, But
(25:04):
what what what's your opinion and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, so yeah, I mean that's something I've thought about.
And I'm not a social scientist, but I think there
is sort of this element of you know, as humans,
we are you know, we are daytime animals. We are
highly visual, we need to be able to see things,
and so kind of any animal that is more active
(25:29):
at night, which is a time frame you know that
we are already you know, evolutionarily designed to be a
little bit more on edge and cautious for and so
you know, there's sort of this idea, Yeah, any animal
is sort of active at night that we can't really see,
you know, there's always gonna be a little bit of
sort of that you know, instinct to be a little
(25:51):
bit cautious.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
And then I think just sort of fear of kind
of unknown anything.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
And so you know, bats are not something that thast
people are interacting with regularly, and that is true for
you know, across time. And I will also say that
a lot of you know, what I tend to think
of and I think what what you sort of mentioned
(26:17):
in terms of our perceptions of bats are very based
in Western society. Other cultures have very different views of bats,
and I think it just depends on the way that
they've interacted with bats.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So, you know, Western society, European society, we've you know,
the sort of witches and the.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Sort of association with nighttime, and then the links to
religion and to things like the devil and which is
you know, that's that's sort of one set of culture.
But then other cultures have very different relationships.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Well you know, yeah, Asians their food right, Asians there
are a food source.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Someone's not as common as we think it is.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
I would I would know, I've kind of I was
thinking about that. I was reading by I'm like, I
don't know how common that is.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
But yeah, I mean it is, it isn't It is
something that it is a concern in terms of conservation,
particularly for the flying foxes, just because they are these
larger animals.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And actually most of the hunting that.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Occurs for bats is less focused on hunting to eat
them and it's more about hunting to protect crops.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
And those sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
So yeah, so and of course it depends on the culture,
but yeah, I mean different cultures, Like I think again,
it's just sort of this idea of the unknown. And
then because there are so many different types of bats,
and and depending on where in the world you are,
the types of bats you have are different, and so
just that can also lead to a lot of confusion
and sort of uncertainty.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I mean, I think, you know, I work mostly in.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
North America, and you know, talking with people, the number
of times you know, people have asked me about, oh,
you know, are you worried about vampire bats, And it's like, well, no,
because they all live here.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Well, I was gonna ask you, you know, some of
the bigger myths that people believe about bats, you know
that you kind of help to correct in your book,
And that's actually one of them is a vampire bat,
and just exactly what they do and what they are.
I think the other one you just mentioned, actually, you
know one another thing is is the myth about the crops,
because people think that bats and farmers, I think bats
(28:32):
are going to destroy their crops, when in actuality, they're
actually helping the farmers because they eat the insects.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, eat the insects.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
A lot of bats, particularly in tropical regions, are very
important pollinators and important seed dispersers.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So yeah, I mean a lot of it.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
And yes, it's hard to and that's some of the challenges,
especially for some of the flying foxes and sort of uh.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, unlinking kind of you know, you know that it's
not the flying boxes that are causing damage.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It's you know, X Y Z issues, and these issues
are very complicated, and so working with these communities and
sort of and it's just true across you know, across
the world, like working with people who are living and
coexisting with these animals and and sort of figuring out
how to do that is key. And a lot of
it just comes down to, Yeah, because they're so mysterious,
(29:31):
it's really easy for you know, these myths to pop
up and it's.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Really hard to counter that.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Well, exactly like the vampire bad they don't go around
sucking people's blood.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
That does not.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Happen, you know they Yeah, now they do. They do
from animals though, get that's what they feed off of.
But they don't go around sucking people's blood like you
see in the movies or something like that.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
No, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're only found in Central and
South America. If you you are anywhere else in the world,
you don't need to worry about encountering a vampire bat.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
And actually I always think it's interesting because and he
did mention sort of Dracula and yeah, the idea, right
that I do these vampires turn into bats. And my
understanding is that that myth sort of started with Bram
Stoker's Dracula, and he got the inspiration when European explorers
(30:29):
were sending back reports about these giant and I'm saying
giant in sort of quotes, giant blood stuffing bats, and
so that court is like, you know, which came first,
sort of, the vampire bats were sort of described by
you know, to Europeans first and then and then that's
where we linked them to vampires, like you knows, as
(30:53):
a monster, which I just think is sort of interesting,
like the way humans sort of the way we integrate,
you know, what we're learning out into our stories and
our you know, folklore.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
And all that kind of stuff, right right, well, right exactly.
I mean we're even bringing our kids up with that
when you look at I mean, at least uh like
Hotel Transylvanian stuff. At least they've made Dracula in them
a little bit nicer, so you know, and not the
blood fucking things that you know, they're nice, they're nice.
So yeah, it's funny though, like you said, how we
(31:24):
uh turned that into that kind of stuff. So so
one thing though, that has been happening and that I
was reading about in your book was the white nose
syndrome that has devastated some bat populations and is continuing
to devastate bat populations. So what can you explain a
(31:46):
little bit more about what white nose syndrome is and
what it's doing to the bad populations and uh the
hopes you guys have that for bat conservation efforts and
that respect.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, So white nose syndrome is this fungal disease that
impacts higrinating bats in mostly temperate systems, so places like
North America and then we sometimes see it maybe in Europe,
and it's caused by this.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Uh it's essentially a soil focus.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
It lives in the dirt in caves and uh it's
called pseudo gymnoascis destructans, which is a mouse bowl, so
you we sometimes call it just PD for short. And
basically what happens is when bats go into caves to hibernate,
they are you know, they're turning off the furnace, they're
(32:46):
shutting down you know, all.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Non essential body functions.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
They slow down their heart rates, they slow down their
temper they lower their temperatures. Uh, they slow down their
breathing and they also you know, sort of hit the
pause button on.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Things like immune response.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
And so this fungus is then able to when it
gets on the bat skin, it's a type of fungus
that grows on tissue, and it essentially hijacks that you know,
physiology and starts growing on their wing skin and then
on their noses, which is where the name comes from,
(33:28):
and then on their ears. And what happens is the
growing of this fungus basically causes bats to wake up from.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Hibernation more frequently than they would otherwise.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
And if we remember that hibernation, the reason that's are
doing hibernation is to save energy.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
They're this tiny animal.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
They can only pack on so much fat for winter,
and so every time they wake up, they are having
to burn a bunch of that energy that they have saved.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
And so what ends up happening is.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
This fungal infection disrupts their hibernation, causes them to wake
up more frequently, and they burned through you know, these
fat reserves faster than they would otherwise, and so that
leads them to starve or to you know, wake up
and try to find food before winter is over when
(34:22):
there's no insects out and about.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So it was.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
First discovered in two thousand and six in upstate New
York and has since spread to something like thirty five
or thirty six states. Not all places have necessarily seen
bats infected by the disease, so when it's actually an
(34:47):
infection in a bat, that is what it's called white
nose syndrome. Otherwise it's just sort of these detections of
that focused in the cave environment, and it did lead
to for some of the bat that were most affected,
really large population decline, something between like eighty five to
ninety nine percent of declines for some of these species
(35:10):
have been linked to this disease, which is depressing. But
what is sort of, you know, what I try to
hold on to as a bad scientist, as a person
who's interested in conservation, and you know, I think hope
is a really important piece of conservation that we need
(35:30):
to hold on to, is that while there's been these
huge declines, we do still see these species getting by,
not in the same numbers that they used to. I,
you know, have had the pleasure to work in some
of these places that white nose hit pretty hard, Like
(35:52):
you know, up in Michigan in the Upper Peninsula, but
you know, we were still seeing them.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
They're still coming back, they're still coming to hibername. I
helped count bats.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
At a local church here not far from where I
live in Pennsylvania. And the past few years, the little
brown bats, which is one of the species that were
hit particularly hard, they're not at the you know, several
thousand that they used to be at, but they've been
holding steadity, which is something and and.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
There's definitely hope that.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
You know, the bats that are surviving that maybe that
they have some some genetic variation that makes them more
likely to survive. A lot of the in the spaces
that I have worked in, some of the shift has
gone from you know, how do we you know, prevent
(36:47):
or clean up these fungus, which is a very difficult task,
to more of how can we support the populations that
are surviving.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
You know, what can we do to you know.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
These bats, you know they're having to go when they're
dealing with this challenge every winter, how.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Can we make the rest of their lives easier?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Right? Right, So things like supporting you know, native plant
populations that are going to support native insects and provide
food for these bats, make it easier for them to
get as fat as possible before hibernation, you know, providing
important you know habitat both before hibernation, over the summer, right,
(37:28):
all the points of the life cycle. So there's definitely like,
you know, a multi prongum approach for you know, how
can we best support these bat populations and sort of
continue to try to figure out like exactly what's going on.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
We're always learning new things. I think, you know, since the.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Book was published, a paper came out that actually showed
that the fungus that causes whit no syndrome there's actually.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Maybe two species of the fungus.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
So there's even you know, right, we're still learning more
stuff about what's going on and how this works and
how we can you know, support bats, right just try
and tie Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
So is that some of this stuff the same thing
that like ordinary people can help to do to protect
bats in their own communities. I mean like maybe putting
out you know, habitats or trying to help ensure you know,
like the plants and stuff like that in their communities
where the bats may be, uh, you know, having that
kind of stuff around to help out as well.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah, for sure. I mean I think.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I mean one one thing I will always advocate for
because it helps not just bats, but helps lots of uh,
you know, native wildlife is you know, having native gardens,
having native yards, you know, having a variety of plants
and structure to you know, your garden as much as
(38:50):
you can, you know, within whatever constraints you have of
your you know, backyard size, et cetera. Things like uh,
you know, if you can leave dead leaves, if you
can leave tree snags, you know, if they're in places
where it's not going to be unsafe, those types of
(39:11):
places can be really important habitat for bats and for
lots of other you know, native wildlife. I think there's
people always ask about bathouses, which I think can be
a great thing. Particularly you know, if you have bats
in an area where we don't want them, you know,
we don't want to just kick them out and give
(39:32):
them nowhere to go, and so bathouses can be a
great way to sort of mitigate when we have to
kind of coexist with bats. Just making sure that people
I try to encourage people to you know, do their research,
make sure they you know, have an idea of what
species of bat they might have in their area. Different
bats like different you know, living habitats. So some bath's
(39:54):
like it really hot, some baths like it cooler. Some
bats like lots of space so they can cram themselves
and a thousand of their best friends into one spot.
Some baths prefer to you know, have solo apartments. So
just kind of knowing, you know, what's in your area
can be really helpful if you are if people are
interested in bathouses. And then honestly, just you know, we've
(40:16):
talked a lot about sort of bat myths and that,
you know, misconceptions, and I think just sort of you know,
spreading the good word about why baths are important and
sort of you know their role in our environment, and
you know they they deserve to live and be in
spaces as well, and you know, making it so that
(40:37):
we can safely co exist with them as much as
possible goes a long.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Way, right. Well, yeah, exactly exactly. Now, another thing that
you mentioned in the books, or excuse me, in the
book was about bats having a unique immune system. What
do you think studying bands could teach us about human health?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Yeah, so this is a much newer area of kind
of research, I think, especially as we learn more about
and have more access to a lot of genetic tools.
But we do know that bats, yeah, have these these
really robust immune systems. They can sort of coexist without
(41:22):
uh you know, necessarily experiencing side effects from a wide
range of different types of viruses and bacteria.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
We think some of that might be linked to their
ability to fly.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Uh So, one of the hypotheses out there about like
why bats are so good at this is this flight
as fever, so fever when we get sick, having a
fever is our body's way of trying to fight off infection,
and bats they are pretty much always operating at these
(41:56):
higher temperatures, which are much harder for bacteria and for
these pathogens to survive at.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Different There's just so many different types.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Of that that they probably all have slightly different variations
and the way that they're able to deal with infection.
One thing that I think has come out in the
last few years, and another hypothesis is that so when
we get sick, when people, our humans get sick, a
lot of the damage that happens to us when we
(42:28):
are sick is actually not from the pathogen itself, but
it's from our bodies attempt to fight off the pathogens.
So things like inflammation where we actually are our own
cells end up causing damage to ourselves.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Bats have ways that their cells and different cell.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Pathways sort of circumvent some of those inflammatory things, so
they are able to sort of be more targeted potentially
in the way they fight off pathogens without necessarily having negative.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Effects on themselves. Standing sort of how these pathways work.
If there's certain.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Like molecules or things that are happening that set off
these pathways, you know, I think there's some hope that
like we can sort of colloct those ideas to develop
you know, drug treatments or things like that kind of
as like a biomimicry sort of approach is one thing that.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I think people are hoping.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
It's also true for not just immune response, but also
aging and longevy that's live exceptionally long lives for their
body size, and so there's a lot of research looking into,
you know, what's going on at the cellular level that's
making it so that they you know, as their cells divide,
(43:45):
they don't break down at these certain rates for you
know what sort of cellular pathways are minimizing the effect
of aging on cells, and how can we you know,
learn from those and take advantage of those to apply
them in in certain circumstances.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Right, right, So what do you think is next for
you in your research or your writing? Do you have
any plans for another book or researching more on a
particular species or what's up next?
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Yeah, so I've actually I will be starting in a
couple of weeks as a professor at a small local
arts college here in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
So I'll be looking to.
Speaker 7 (44:31):
Do a lot more teaching and diving back into doing
some hopefully some field work exploring some more local bats
and looking at how they react to olfactory queues and
their environments.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
And then I, you know, continue to write, I guessed
guest write or back Conservation International's blog, and you know,
maybe give me another ten ten years and I'm sure
we'll have enough material to write a whole new batbook
with all the things that we'll have and learned since.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
The first one.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Exactly because research keeps getting done, so there's got to
be new stuff out there. Well, as long as you're
including those beautiful photographs again, because I'm telling you. Those
really made a difference with the book because they were
just gorgeous. I loved looking at them.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
So yeah, I am really grateful to particularly to Rock
Betton and Jerry Benton and then Pryce Sewell who donated
a lot of those photos that are just yes, stunning
beautiful photography of bats that really capture the personality that
we see exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Now, if somebody wanted to learn more about you, or
if they would like to get your book The Weird
and Wonderful World of Bats, where can they find more
information about you? And where can they find your book?
Or can both be found on the same site?
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, a little bit of both. So I have.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
My website is Alison Brocott, and I'm also active on
social media, particularly Instagram and TikTok as alib underscore Batgirl,
where I share a lot of fun videos and things
about bats. I believe all those places have links to
(46:18):
the book, but I like to encourage you pretty much.
I everywhere books are sold, but one of my favorite
places to buy books is bookshop dot org, where you
can select a local or independent bookstore to benefit from
your purchases while still getting to the benefit of buying online.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Oh nice. Well, Allison, I really appreciate you coming on
the podcast tonight and sharing all this information about bats.
I hope but the listeners out there found it as
informational as I did. I love learning, you know, about
new things and stuff like that, so it was great
having you on to talk about bats and dispel some
(46:54):
of the myths and misunderstandings about them.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Yeah. No, thank you won for me. I mean I
could talk about bats for hours, So that's the hard part.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Well, you know, if new research and stuff comes out,
maybe we won't have to say about having you again
at a later time, you know, in a few years
and discuss some of the new stuff about bats.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Absolutely, all right, Well, again I appreciate you being on
the podcast tonight. I'm just gonna go ahead and announce
my next couple of podcasts that it'll be coming up
next month. You're welcome to stay on why I do that,
But I also know you know, different time zone, you're
a little bit later, so you are also welcome to
(47:38):
jump off why I announce those. That's perfectly fine. So
and again I appreciate you being on tonight. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, thank you. I think I'll go ahead and hop off,
but have a good rest of your night.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
All right, Thank you you too, thank you all right
by now all right everybody, so listen, just got off.
It was great talk talking with her about bats and
learning all that information that she shared with us. And again, guys,
don't forget if you want to learn more about bats,
go on out there and buy Allison's book and give it. Agreed,
(48:15):
There's a lot of good information in there. And like
I said, those photographs are just stunning. So the kudos
for those guys that took them in and donated those pictures.
All right, So the next upcoming podcasts, I think you
guys are going to like. The next one, it's on
August seventh, and I'm going to have Aaron mainly manly
I'm hoping and pronouncing her name correct or his name
(48:39):
there with Pet Partners. They are going to be coming
on to talk with me about Pet Partners, which is
a therapy or service dog organization, and one of the
things they're coming on to talk about is the Pet
Partner's World's largest Pet Walk, which is going to be
(48:59):
happening on Saturday, September twenty seventh. So we're going to
be talking about that, and we're also going to be
talking about Pet Partners and their love of pet therapy animals.
It is therapy and that service, and how you know
you can volunteer with your pet, you know, become a
Pet Partner therapy animal volunteer, How you can help support
(49:22):
their mission, request visits from pets to go to nursing homes,
things like that, hospitals, all sorts of information about Pet
Partners that we'll be finding out. So I am looking
forward to having Aaron coming on the show. And then
on August twenty first, I'm going to have Tanya from
(49:46):
Turpentine Creek Sanctuary. I'm pretty sure Tanya is the founder
of the sanctuary, so be coming on to talk with
me about Turpentine Creek, which is a big cat sanctuary
for like the cats that are being sold and traded
(50:06):
in the exotic animal trade and you know, the ones
used in the movies and stuff like that. So they
are a sanctuary where a lot of these big cats
can go and they are helping to educate the public
and they're trying to end the exotic animal trade and
they're doing a lot of great stuff, education, preservation, all
(50:29):
sorts of good stuff they do rescue, some animal care,
you know, helping out with enforcement stuff like that. So
they are also helping bears as well. So Tanya's going
to be coming on and she's going to be telling
us all about Turpentine Creek Wildlife Sanctuary or why I'm sorry,
(50:51):
Wildlife Refuge. So I'm looking forward to talking with her. Yes,
Tany is president founder, so I'm looking forward to having
her on to be really good to talk with her
about the cats and stuff like that. So again, guys,
don't forget to come on back in a couple of
weeks and join me on August seventh for the Pet
(51:11):
Partners and then on August twenty first for the Turpentine
Creek Animal Refuge, and I'll learn a little bit more
about those two organizations and the animals and stuff. So
I hope you guys enjoyed tonight's podcast, and I hope
you guys learned a lot, and I hope you all
stay safe out there this weekend and don't be getting
(51:33):
into too much trouble. And excuse my dog down here
for whining, I think as people are coming out. So anyway,
you all have a good weekend and stay safe out
there and come on back in a couple of weeks
for the next podcast.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
By now
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com