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Speaker 2: You see Pocusha Energy dot E for fulltiesncies. Oh hey,
Speaker 2: it's still your friend's baby who looks like a turtle.
Speaker 2: Alli ward back with a part two episode of ologies. Hey,
Speaker 2: did you listen to part one of Chiropterology about bats? No? Then,
Speaker 2: what are you doing here? Would you walk into a
Speaker 2: movie eighty five minutes in with only half a bucket
Speaker 2: of popcorn? No? So go listen to part one. You're
Speaker 2: gonna hear all about cave tails and bat flimflams, debunkery
Speaker 2: and what is it bat? And how are they similar
Speaker 2: to prime? And what makes them able to sleep upside down,
Speaker 2: and why should we protect them? And can you build
Speaker 2: a huge habitat that they'll come and live in? And
Speaker 2: who makes good bath houses? And how can you train
Speaker 2: one in some real tight spots that chiropterologists can get in,
Speaker 2: but real quick. Thank you to all the folks at
Speaker 2: patreon dot com slash ologies make it possible, and who
Speaker 2: submit wonderful fun questions every week, and also to anyone
Speaker 2: who rates and subscribes and keeps ologies up in the
Speaker 2: charts among the science giants. Thank you so much for that,
Speaker 2: and for telling friends about the show, and of course
Speaker 2: for leaving a review for me to creepily read and
Speaker 2: choose one each week to thank such as For example,
Speaker 2: Nicole thirty four ninety six said, I've been listening to
Speaker 2: Ologies at work and it never gets old. I wish
Speaker 2: I had more time in the day to listen to
Speaker 2: every episode. I love the uniqueness of each episode. It
Speaker 2: will keep you extremely interested in wanting to learn more. PS.
Speaker 2: Merlin is my new celebrity crush thanks to the Bats episode.
Speaker 2: Well thank you Nicole on behalf of myself and America's
Speaker 2: favorite bad expert. So this week Part two now, after
Speaker 2: a quick body break for both of us. We concluded
Speaker 2: part one of this massive three hour bat extravaganza, took
Speaker 2: a little break. Merlin just went into his office and
Speaker 2: grabbed an iPad containing an archive of bat calls he'd
Speaker 2: recorded using an ultrasonic microphone, and he lent a play
Speaker 2: by play like Vince Scully of the bat world. And
Speaker 2: then we dove back into your patroon questions. So hang out,
Speaker 2: open your ears to hear bat conversations about echolocation and
Speaker 2: how to put up a bath house, and more info
Speaker 2: on white nose syndrome and bat coitus and habitats and
Speaker 2: his favorite species and what he does in his leisure time.
Speaker 2: So settle in for the wildlife wizardry of human treasure
Speaker 2: and America's favorite chiropterologist, Doctor Merlin Tuttle. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: not every day you get down with the Marlin title.
Speaker 3: This is just a.
Speaker 4: Very slowed down recording. All there. That's a call of
Speaker 4: a free tail bad Now that one, he's just.
Speaker 3: Coming up on some obstacles. No, he's actually chasing an
Speaker 3: insect that's his feeding. But he's locked in here. That's
Speaker 3: that's where he caught the insect. Now he's going back
Speaker 3: to what he was doing.
Speaker 2: Okay. So that ultrasonic recorder is called the Echometer Touch
Speaker 2: and it's made by Wildlife Acoustics. They're not sponsors. They
Speaker 2: just make cool gadgets for scientists and friends to animals.
Speaker 2: And this thing can plug into an iPhone or an iPad.
Speaker 2: They're between like two hundred and three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: bucks depending on how pro of a model you get.
Speaker 2: And hey, holidays are coming up. How about everyone gives
Speaker 2: each other bad houses and maybe chips in for tiny
Speaker 2: ultrasonic microphones and some of Merlin Tittle's books in the
Speaker 2: new year. Also, what if you just want to see
Speaker 2: some bats now? First time question asker and part time
Speaker 2: at chiropterologist in Alaska, Dave Hayna asked about bat research
Speaker 2: instruments and I hope that he gets one of these things.
Speaker 2: Maybe he already has one. Also, patrons including Iris McPherson,
Speaker 2: Lisa Butterscotch, Jamie Kishimoto all asked about the best way
Speaker 2: to spot one, and Nicole Bratt asked where can I
Speaker 2: go to give bats a tender little hug provided they
Speaker 2: want it? If you want to go bat spotting, if
Speaker 2: you want to see a bat, what's the best pace.
Speaker 4: If I want to see a bat, Yeah, I'm probably
Speaker 4: going to do one of several things. First of all,
Speaker 4: I'm going to learn a lesson learn right here in
Speaker 4: front of my house. One night. I wanted to test
Speaker 4: this out when I first bought obtained it, and I
Speaker 4: went downtown and went all over places where I thought
Speaker 4: there would be bats feeding, and I couldn't pick up
Speaker 4: hardly at bat. They left town and went out to
Speaker 4: the agricultural.
Speaker 2: Areas to be Oh wow.
Speaker 4: When I came home, Paul wanted me to try and
Speaker 4: see if they're any in the yard, and I said, no, no,
Speaker 4: there wouldn't been out here. And it turns out that
Speaker 4: in our neighborhood, as in most neighborhoods, most of the
Speaker 4: street lights are yellow now and don't attract insects, but
Speaker 4: the one in front of our place is white. And
Speaker 4: I got such good recordings right standing in front of
Speaker 4: our house that the manufacturer asked to use them for
Speaker 4: promoting the product.
Speaker 2: Merlin says that these are social calls, like I love Hey,
Speaker 2: so they.
Speaker 5: Do chat a lot.
Speaker 4: These are just telling them what's right in front of him,
Speaker 4: but much more detail.
Speaker 5: And that's a type of sonar Yeah, with a.
Speaker 4: Bat detector, you'd be amazed how many times I can
Speaker 4: go out and even with a spotlight, can't spot a bat,
Speaker 4: but I can hear at least one or two right close,
Speaker 4: Like where hell are they? First place I'd go looking
Speaker 4: for a bat if I didn't have a bat detector,
Speaker 4: would be a white street light or any outdoor powerful
Speaker 4: white light, because they attract insects the bats like to eat,
Speaker 4: is opposed to yellow lights that just expose into more
Speaker 4: alpidation and don't attract insects.
Speaker 2: So go crash an insect party, but do not invite
Speaker 2: any owls.
Speaker 4: The other thing I'd do if there was a river
Speaker 4: or a lake anywhere and there were boat docks and
Speaker 4: there were landing lights, white lights on the docks, I
Speaker 4: would look around those because it's a lot easier to
Speaker 4: spot bets out over clear open water, lying all over
Speaker 4: the water than it is up high around street lights.
Speaker 4: If you can find a white street light still, and
Speaker 4: that's hard these days. Sometimes you need to shield your
Speaker 4: eyes from the absolute center of the lights that doesn't
Speaker 4: blind you. But then look around and you know sea bats.
Speaker 4: I used to take people up to the state Capitol
Speaker 4: in the springtime, and we'd sit there with a bat
Speaker 4: detector and listen. There wouldn't be anything for a while,
Speaker 4: and then we'd hear several bats coming into the zone
Speaker 4: and we'd look up and you'd actually see the wings
Speaker 4: dropping from the maths that they're eating.
Speaker 2: Oh man, now, the wings just drop like snickers wrappers, right,
Speaker 2: Like they don't want those, They just want what's inside, right.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that about mobs until I was helping
Speaker 2: renovate a kitchen up in Montana and found out that
Speaker 2: animals don't eat the wings. They just like to eat
Speaker 2: the right squishy part, right, Yeah, it's like candy wrappers.
Speaker 2: So in this case, it was a mice infestation on
Speaker 2: our family's little teeny tiny prairie house, and the mice
Speaker 2: just hmm huh, they yum yum it up with the moss.
Speaker 2: But yes, they leave the wings around like swaps. Nobody
Speaker 2: wants them.
Speaker 4: So there are other ways to sea bats too, you know,
Speaker 4: watch a cave entrance where they come out at night.
Speaker 4: I have often, you know, even been in a foreign
Speaker 4: country and just look up and see a woodpecker hole
Speaker 4: in a tree and wait and watch and see a
Speaker 4: bat come out.
Speaker 2: Who's there.
Speaker 4: If you're in the tropics, then most places you go,
Speaker 4: like anywhere in the tropics, you'll have various kinds of
Speaker 4: bananas growing banana plants. Bananas are bat pollinated. We didn't
Speaker 4: even get into this whole part of how important bats
Speaker 4: are pollinating economically important and yahologically important plants.
Speaker 2: Yes, patrons such as Sophie Cosino and Laura Kinney who asked,
Speaker 2: aside from bats chowing down on insects, some bats are
Speaker 2: important pollinators, right, Gwen Boat simply demanded, what can you
Speaker 2: tell me about bats as pollinators? I want to know everything,
Speaker 2: Gwen Boat.
Speaker 5: Here we go.
Speaker 4: So if you're staying in a resort hotel in the tropics,
Speaker 4: and well, in fact, I've done this down and along
Speaker 4: the Gulf of California coast in Mexico co some of
Speaker 4: a lot of the resorts will have cardone and organ
Speaker 4: pipe and shirl cactus growing right up outside your door
Speaker 4: or in the parking lot, and there'll be lights around.
Speaker 4: And in the right season, bats come and pollinate the
Speaker 4: They're mostly bat pollinated in bat sea dispersed. And I've
Speaker 4: sat in the back of a hotel room in Mexico
Speaker 4: and watched bats four feet away coming and pollinating flowers,
Speaker 4: and a lot of places will have bananas. You know,
Speaker 4: bananas flower over very long periods during the year, and
Speaker 4: you see a banana that has one of the stalks
Speaker 4: that hang down that eventually developed bananas on them.
Speaker 2: Ps Merlin was like, what what is the word for
Speaker 2: a stalk of bananas? Like a stem of them? And
Speaker 2: I was like, got me, dude, but I'll look it up.
Speaker 2: So I did, and let me tell you, there were
Speaker 2: some search returns that are more than you bargained for
Speaker 2: when you type in banana plus anatomy. Now, at first glance,
Speaker 2: it seemed like the word we were looking for was
Speaker 2: just stem or stock of bananas. But then I saw
Speaker 2: that when it's a bunch of flowers, it's called an inflorescence,
Speaker 2: which sounds like a new Calvin Klein perfume. Also, is
Speaker 2: now a good time to remind you that a banana
Speaker 2: is a berry? Are we still reeling from that pumpkin
Speaker 2: fact in the qu Curbatology episode? We are? Anyway, Bats
Speaker 2: love and inflorescence are a big stock of flowers to
Speaker 2: motor boat.
Speaker 4: After sun goes down or starting a little bit before,
Speaker 4: you'll see one of these purple bracts will start opening.
Speaker 4: When it gets open, then the bats come and pollinate them. Now,
Speaker 4: there aren't any New World bats that originally depended on
Speaker 4: bananas for pollination, because bananas didn't come from the New World,
Speaker 4: they came from the Old World tropics. But all commercial
Speaker 4: bananas that we today come from bat dependent ancestors.
Speaker 5: This has bananas.
Speaker 4: So anywhere in the world, just about if you go
Speaker 4: out and you see banana plants growing in a yard,
Speaker 4: watch those carefully at dusk or a little bit after dusk,
Speaker 4: and you're very likely to see small nectar feeding bats
Speaker 4: coming in and visiting them.
Speaker 2: So bats are important pollinators for another plant. And algave
Speaker 2: a clue of what that affects tequila. It's agave. The
Speaker 2: plant's agave. Oh, but if it grows a big stock
Speaker 2: of flowers in the middle, that's an inflorescence.
Speaker 4: By Calvin, I mean even in Austin, I've laughed at
Speaker 4: myself before. I'm curious. I've never gone out to a
Speaker 4: really big, fully flowering agave plant in Austin watched it
Speaker 4: for a couple hours at night. There might be nectar
Speaker 4: bats here that we don't know about yet.
Speaker 2: Now are you a night person or you a morning person.
Speaker 4: I don't think I'm naturally a night person, but I've
Speaker 4: certainly had to adapt.
Speaker 2: What happens when you're out doing nocturnal fieldwork, have like
Speaker 2: a thermiss of folgers.
Speaker 5: What do you take with you?
Speaker 4: I have been accused of trying to kill people from
Speaker 4: starvation dehydration. I used to go on trips in the caves.
Speaker 4: My most arduous cave trip took twenty three hours, no,
Speaker 4: and in one day we probably climbed six or seven
Speaker 4: hundred feet of vertical ropes and on things like that.
Speaker 4: You've got to carry all these heavy ropes, you're climbing gear,
Speaker 4: your research gear. You don't carry anything else you don't
Speaker 4: have to. So I tend to go really light on
Speaker 4: pudding water. And I have myself been so desperate at
Speaker 4: the end of one of those long stays underground that
Speaker 4: one night I actually got down and drank water out
Speaker 4: of a puddle that had bat droppings in it.
Speaker 5: You lived to tell the tail.
Speaker 2: Do you get sick?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: Do I need to remind you to never do this?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 6: Good?
Speaker 2: So bring water or emergency water purification tablets or filters. Listen,
Speaker 2: you spend literally fifty years in the field and some
Speaker 2: shit's going to go down, but he survived. Just don't
Speaker 2: you do it?
Speaker 5: Please?
Speaker 2: So have you have you learned a lesson? Did you
Speaker 2: never let that happen again?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody knows me would say I fully
Speaker 4: learned the lesson.
Speaker 2: Oh that's like some Indiana Jones stuff right there. Oh
Speaker 2: my god.
Speaker 4: One more thing on bat watching. Another way to see bats.
Speaker 4: If you're in at if you go to Caribbean Island
Speaker 4: to a resort or your on way's cruise ships. In
Speaker 4: the tropic subtropics of Latin America, you can often see
Speaker 4: fishing bats with up to three almost three foot wingspans
Speaker 4: catching minnows, under dog lights catching minnows. Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Fisher bats.
Speaker 4: They have big hind feet and laterally compressed toes so
Speaker 4: that they slide through the water of minimum friction. They
Speaker 4: have very sharp claws and they just dip down and
Speaker 4: snag the minnow out of the water.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a pterodactyl or something. Okay, side note,
Speaker 2: I look this up and it's impressive as hell to
Speaker 2: use sonar to scoop up a fish with your feet. Well,
Speaker 2: also your hands are wings. But I did think it
Speaker 2: was funny that fisher bats were featured on one nat
Speaker 2: geodocumentary called I Mean they Catch Fish? So was the
Speaker 2: documentary made for fish? Anyway? Sounds like another fearmonger smear campaign.
Speaker 2: A bunch of bulguano, You catch my drift. On the
Speaker 2: topic of guano, some people asked how you felt about
Speaker 2: the term batshit crazy.
Speaker 4: I don't have any particular response to it. First of all,
Speaker 4: I firmly believe that if you're too much in love
Speaker 4: with the kind of animal, you can't really effectively conserve it. Okay,
Speaker 4: if you're too much in love with it, you're probably
Speaker 4: going to go out into combat with everybody that doesn't
Speaker 4: do what you think they should do. When I first
Speaker 4: started trying to say baths, virtually everybody I met hated them,
Speaker 4: and they would often tell me about how they kill
Speaker 4: large numbers of them. And I had to learn you
Speaker 4: can't win battles without allies. That's a good point, And
Speaker 4: you can't get allies by fighting with everybody that disagrees
Speaker 4: with you if the majority disagree with you.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Merlin's School of Conflict Resolution Wizardry. Let's role
Speaker 2: play shall we.
Speaker 4: And so I would simply ask, well, I'm curious, why
Speaker 4: do you do that? Well, one tried to attack me
Speaker 4: on it. Oh really, I'm very interested in text, you know,
Speaker 4: and all my life staying baths, I've never been attacked
Speaker 4: or see anybody that was. So I'm really curious. Could
Speaker 4: you tell me about how this attack occurred? And we
Speaker 4: usually end up finding out that it was imagined and
Speaker 4: certainly unproven, or they say, you know, somebody told me,
Speaker 4: and I just asked we has this person ever been
Speaker 4: wrong about anything?
Speaker 2: You're like, well, they're my drunk uncle and they're wrong
Speaker 2: about everything.
Speaker 4: You just keep asking questions until finally, you know, what
Speaker 4: would you think of bats if you understood that just
Speaker 4: one of that species can catch a thousand mosquitos in
Speaker 4: an hour, or can catch enough potato beetles or cucumber
Speaker 4: beetles in a summer to protect your garden from all
Speaker 4: kinds of havoc. You know, I've had people that thought
Speaker 4: they had a terrible problem with bats in their attic,
Speaker 4: and I'd come and actually tell them how to get
Speaker 4: the bats to leave. But when I'd finished telling them
Speaker 4: about what bats did and what they were like, they'd
Speaker 4: say no, no, no, we don't want to get rid of them.
Speaker 4: Now we're going to keep them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what do you do if you have bats in
Speaker 5: the attic? Is it okay just to leave him up there?
Speaker 4: I certainly wouldn't advocate allowing bats or any wild animal
Speaker 4: to come into human living quarters inside. But there's absolutely
Speaker 4: nothing to worry about from a bath that wants to
Speaker 4: live behind your window shutter or lives in the attic
Speaker 4: and isn't causing you know, bat droppings. Too much of
Speaker 4: anything in the wrong place is not good. One guy
Speaker 4: put up a bathouse over his front door because he
Speaker 4: wanted to look and see the baths every day. Well
Speaker 4: after they start got to be hundreds of him in
Speaker 4: his house and start dropping a half inch iguano, he
Speaker 4: was calling to know how he could move him.
Speaker 2: Maybe just consider that before you hang it up. Perhaps,
Speaker 2: So where do you put a bat box? A lot
Speaker 2: of you want to tips, A lot of you, such
Speaker 2: as Josie Gombas, Molly Henning, Trisha Lauren, Dean, Lauren Blanchard,
Speaker 2: May Merrill, Robin Kewan, Eva, Jen Henry, Addie Markin, Deborah Dillar,
Speaker 2: m Wings, Sarah Greer, Robert Pulcini, Carolyn Armitage, Liz Powell,
Speaker 2: Gretchen Herriford, Fernando Derek Allen, Ellie Abbott, Anna Thompson, Jennifer Alvarez,
Speaker 2: Julie Noble, Highly Stouschnoff, Tristan Kwasinski, Brandy Madeline Runyon, Charlotte Fielkegard,
Speaker 2: Sarah Crocker, Amy Sally Colleini b and Kevin List, who asked,
Speaker 2: what's to do with bathhouses? Why do they need to
Speaker 2: be on a standalone pole above a certain height? Or
Speaker 2: Janet Sebastian Coleman, who asked, how do I befriend the bats?
Speaker 2: How do I get them to come and hang out
Speaker 2: in my yard? Or Jessica Shunk, who asked, how can
Speaker 2: I attract the bats to a bath house after we
Speaker 2: evicted them from our eves? Or will they forever tell
Speaker 2: tales of our lack of hospitality? She sounds guilty as hell. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I looked it up on Merlin Tittle dot org.
Speaker 2: He has a whole guide about bat boxes write clickable
Speaker 2: there on his homepage. Read it and figure out how
Speaker 2: big of a bat box would be good for the
Speaker 2: species in your area, and even what color to paint
Speaker 2: it depending on your region. So darker bath houses tend
Speaker 2: to retain heat and are better for colder climates, and
Speaker 2: ones mounted on a building retain more heat that the
Speaker 2: bats dig, and temperate and warmer climates might be better
Speaker 2: served with a bat box on a pole. Also, in general,
Speaker 2: bats aren't crazy about ones mounted on trees because predators
Speaker 2: can scramble right up the tree where birds of prey
Speaker 2: can hang out in a branch and snack on their
Speaker 2: babies like popcorn shrimp. Also, apparently there's not much evidence
Speaker 2: that adding batguano will attract.
Speaker 5: Bats faster, so don't deal with that shit.
Speaker 2: And if you have an empty baththouse that just isn't
Speaker 2: getting a lot of action, it might be because it
Speaker 2: needs seven hours of direct daily sun, so it might
Speaker 2: need to be moved. Anyway, go to Merlin Toddle dot org.
Speaker 2: Figure it out, and then just breathe easy, he writes.
Speaker 2: If you know you have a good bathouse mounted in
Speaker 2: a good location, be patient. The bats will likely arrive eventually.
Speaker 4: As long as as the you know the bats are
Speaker 4: on the outside the house you're on the inside. I
Speaker 4: think that's perfectly fine. And the old pest control operators
Speaker 4: that are trying to make a lot of money scaring
Speaker 4: people would tell you that they bred like rabbits, that
Speaker 4: they once got their sin established, you'd never get rid
Speaker 4: of them, and all that kind of thing. But not true.
Speaker 2: Okay, Remember, bat breeding goes a little slow, and many
Speaker 2: of them have only one pop at a time, unlike
Speaker 2: a soft, squirmy pile of rabbit babies. So flim flam debunked. Also,
Speaker 2: it didn't strike me until later that I totally forgot
Speaker 2: to ask Marilin about bat jennies. What's happening in a
Speaker 2: chiropterology crotch? So Cassiana Brook wanted to know. Do bats
Speaker 2: have penises? How do they approcreate? Well? I looked it up,
Speaker 2: and they do have sexual intercourse with their penises and
Speaker 2: vaginas they are mammals. Also, bat dicks sometimes have caraitonized
Speaker 2: spines on them that may serve like a barbecue brush,
Speaker 2: just to get out other bats sperm. Since, as we
Speaker 2: mentioned briefly, lat week bats love and orgy, now, Sam
Speaker 2: f said, I have recently read articles about fruit bats
Speaker 2: performing falatio and connolingis can you tell me more? Julie
Speaker 2: Berry put it more plainly, truth or flim flamm bats
Speaker 2: engage in oral sex. Derek Allen, Friend to Bats, chimed
Speaker 2: in on the Patreon questions and said, I have seen
Speaker 2: this happen when I was a zoo volunteer. Both falatio
Speaker 2: and conna lingus have been observed. So yep, bats will
Speaker 2: get down and they will go down. That is a fact. Now,
Speaker 2: Tay Solis left the patreon plea, please talk about homosexuality
Speaker 2: and bats. We deserve gay bat talk. Tay, I looked
Speaker 2: it up and sure as heck ya, bats are gay.
Speaker 2: Bats will bone when everyone's awake. They'll also bone each
Speaker 2: other while one is taking a snooze, which is reprehensible
Speaker 2: in human mammals. Researchers tasked with quantifying bat sex say
Speaker 2: up to thirty five percent of the sleepy sex is
Speaker 2: just man on man bat action.
Speaker 5: What about lady bats?
Speaker 2: Can we talk about their bat boobs?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 2: Can? Their bat boobs are sometimes low located in their
Speaker 2: armpits so that their one to two babies can just
Speaker 2: latch on, bite a nip, and go zooming through the sky. Now.
Speaker 2: Side note, if you google bat nipples, the first ten
Speaker 2: thousand or so returns are about George Clooney's beleaguered be
Speaker 2: nippled batsuit, which Batman director Joel Schumacher later explained that
Speaker 2: he had told the lead customer of the film, let's
Speaker 2: make it anatomical and then he gave photos of those
Speaker 2: Greek statues. The costumer did the nipples, and he says,
Speaker 2: when I looked at them, I thought, that's cool. You
Speaker 2: know what have been cooler armpit nipples and maybe a
Speaker 2: same sex romantic subplot. Let's spice up these franchises people now.
Speaker 2: This next question, asked by not Clooney George, was echoed
Speaker 2: by Brian Wharton and Austinite Let's see George Ferar wants
Speaker 2: to know how did different types of bats evolve to
Speaker 2: have such varying food sources like fruit bats having fruit,
Speaker 2: vampire bats blood. I was thinking it was like birds
Speaker 2: having different beak types, but fruit and blood are not
Speaker 2: the same in any way.
Speaker 4: So hmm, Well, there are a lot of these things
Speaker 4: that we can't know absolutely, we can only speculate based
Speaker 4: on what we see today. But one that's particularly interested me.
Speaker 4: You go to my website photo gallery, you'll see pictures
Speaker 4: of bats paullinaying cacti, and one of them is some
Speaker 4: of those pictures are pallid bats pollinating Cardone cactus, the
Speaker 4: world's largest cactus. It gets up to fifty sixty feet tall.
Speaker 4: And this is a bat that predominantly was thought for
Speaker 4: most of my career to eat only insects, scorpions, and centipedes.
Speaker 4: Then one night I'm out trying to catch a nectar
Speaker 4: feeding bat to put in my studio, and I watch
Speaker 4: a bat come in and obviously stick its head in
Speaker 4: the flower. It comes out with its head covered and
Speaker 4: pallen gets caught in my net. Turns out to be
Speaker 4: a pallid bat, not the nectar bat that we thought
Speaker 4: was should have been their pollinating the plant, And later
Speaker 4: it's been well documented that pallid bats are major flower pollinators.
Speaker 4: Probably how this all started was palid bats love to
Speaker 4: eat things like sphinx moths that come to those same flowers.
Speaker 4: So a palid bat coming too a cardone cactus maybe
Speaker 4: just as likely to grab a sphinx moth or as
Speaker 4: it is to grab a drink.
Speaker 2: Can I give you a night cup? So they're kind
Speaker 2: of like omnivorous A bit.
Speaker 4: Sure, they are bats that are quite omnivorous.
Speaker 2: Now, what about fuzzy blood guzzlers. Are they low key
Speaker 2: monster creeps or are they just like your friends on
Speaker 2: the Keto diet, but very hairy with wing hands.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can imagine that. You know, even vampires a
Speaker 4: little harder to figure out. But you know, they may
Speaker 4: have been attracted. You know, when you had these giant
Speaker 4: animals jabbing each other with tusts and things, there are
Speaker 4: probably some fair open ones and they probably attracted insects,
Speaker 4: and bats may have come to catch those insects and
Speaker 4: then found out that the blood tasted good. And before
Speaker 4: anybody wrinkles up because bats eat blood, let me point
Speaker 4: out that's only been relatively recent years. It hasn't been
Speaker 4: popular with humans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's so you know, we're in Texas
Speaker 2: right now. There's a lot of people eating steak today.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that is eating blood.
Speaker 4: So yeah, well blood sausage, you know, still probably pretty
Speaker 4: popular in some parts of the.
Speaker 2: World, oh for sure. Now, of course, vampire bats were
Speaker 2: on the brains of many of you, including Caleb Patten,
Speaker 2: Jody Riek, No Fun, Nicole Radley, Megmahali, Dane Goding, Hayden Sloan,
Speaker 2: and first time question asker Kira Die. Do you think
Speaker 2: that the vampire bats are maybe where vampire's got the
Speaker 2: lore of being associated with vampire Transylvania types.
Speaker 4: What's interesting is that the whole vampire legend occurred before
Speaker 4: anybody knew of a vampire bat. There are independent vampire
Speaker 4: legends in many parts of the world, from Europe to
Speaker 4: the Pacific Islands. There was this whole idea of vampires
Speaker 4: and drinking blood long before they found a bat that
Speaker 4: did it seriously. In the earliest vampire stories were people
Speaker 4: that were vampires, and in fact, people did, even in Europe,
Speaker 4: do really despicable things. Not even two hundred years ago.
Speaker 4: There were major generals and people who, after battle would
Speaker 4: impale enemies by sticking them a sword handle up through
Speaker 4: their body and leaving them alive dangling on it. People
Speaker 4: who would fill a tub with human blood and bathe
Speaker 4: in it. They are all kinds of crazy things, horrible
Speaker 4: things done by people involume blood. But when we finally
Speaker 4: discovered a bath that ate blood like we still many
Speaker 4: of us do, all of a sudden we'd found the despicable, terrible,
Speaker 4: nasty thing.
Speaker 2: You know what's not despicable sharing a meal now, since
Speaker 2: it's hard to sneak up on bird butts and mammal
Speaker 2: nipples to slice and lap up the blood. Sometimes vampire
Speaker 2: bats will get hungry if they don't feed for a
Speaker 2: day or two, so their friends will know that and
Speaker 2: they'll just barf up blood for them to share. Is
Speaker 2: there anything more goth and selfless than that? It's just
Speaker 2: like offering your neighbor hot talk, except you have eaten
Speaker 2: it first. Not to mention the vampire finch. No one's
Speaker 2: out there worrying about finches.
Speaker 4: Go to my website. Go to the photo gallery and
Speaker 4: look under vampires, and you'll find that at least one
Speaker 4: species of vampires is one of the cutest animals around.
Speaker 4: The bat is cute.
Speaker 2: Merlin got up to get this beautiful little folk color pamphlet,
Speaker 2: smaller than a deck of cards, slim is a credit card.
Speaker 2: He hands them out to strangers to spread the batfacts
Speaker 2: like how invaluable bats are as pollinators, that they can
Speaker 2: live up to forty years, that they save farmers up
Speaker 2: to twenty three billion dollars a year in pest control,
Speaker 2: that a bat can catch up to one thousand insects
Speaker 2: an hour, that one point five million live in Austin,
Speaker 2: that they form long term friendships that may involve blood vomit.
Speaker 2: So many great facts on this pamphlet except for the
Speaker 2: blood vomit part. But the front of the pamphlet has
Speaker 2: his squish faced bat. It looks like a very hairy,
Speaker 2: tiny fridge bulldog.
Speaker 3: Oh so good, Oh cut.
Speaker 5: Oh that's a vampire bat.
Speaker 2: I'd let him take a nibble. Okay, Now onto the
Speaker 2: sweet difficult question of picking a favorite species, a thing
Speaker 2: wondered about by patrons Crystal Mendoza, Ruby Austrich, Iras McPherson,
Speaker 2: Kathleen Sachs, and Jay, who asked, what's the best bat?
Speaker 2: And why is it the flying fox? Not so fast, Jay.
Speaker 5: So many people asked if you have a.
Speaker 2: Favorite species of bat?
Speaker 5: Is that so hard to ask?
Speaker 4: It's virtually impossible for me to pick a favorite. You know,
Speaker 4: it would tend to be the ones I worked with
Speaker 4: most recently. I used to thank my favorites for the
Speaker 4: larger carnivores. Then I found out that these tiny little
Speaker 4: bats smaller than a nickel are so intelligent thing to
Speaker 4: start training me. It's hard not to fall in love
Speaker 4: with them.
Speaker 2: Rillin says that an unfortunate part of conservation means preserving
Speaker 2: some individual specimens to keep in collections for future ecologists,
Speaker 2: and he says it's in the name of learning as
Speaker 2: much as possible about each species to keep millions of
Speaker 2: them safe. Now, one thing that's a real threat to
Speaker 2: bats that we don't talk about often is wind turbines.
Speaker 2: Of you, Samantha Mitz and Derek Allen asked about how
Speaker 2: dangerous harnessing wind energy is, and Merlin has an article
Speaker 2: on his website about all of this. But the long
Speaker 2: and short of it is that sadly, wind power kills
Speaker 2: tons of bats from collisions and from a drop in
Speaker 2: air pressure that affects their oxygen levels and their lungs
Speaker 2: and can kill them instantly. Now, hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands of bats die just in the US each year,
Speaker 2: and the estimates are likely way lower than the reality
Speaker 2: since so many scavengers will just gobble up the dead
Speaker 2: bats before they're found and counted. So what can stop
Speaker 2: all of these bats dying? Things that can stop it
Speaker 2: involved raising the wind speed threshold for when the turbine
Speaker 2: starts rotating, so waiting till it gets a little bit
Speaker 2: windier to have them start going around. That could save
Speaker 2: seventy seven percent of some species killed with only a
Speaker 2: one percent decline in energy output, or perhaps adding an
Speaker 2: annoying ultrasonic deterrent kind of a loud noise that they
Speaker 2: just hate, kind of like when bars play the Semisonic
Speaker 2: hit closing time at intolerable volumes at one fifty five am. Now,
Speaker 2: Merlin says that until the wind folks and the bat
Speaker 2: folks figure it out, we can each try individually just
Speaker 2: to use less electricity, just turn out the lights for
Speaker 2: the bats.
Speaker 4: The goal is to save as much of healthy nature
Speaker 4: on this planet as we can. It's not to quibble
Speaker 4: about every little thing that goes wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the bigger picture for sure. Okay, let's return to
Speaker 2: the topic of cuteness. A listener named Georgia wants to
Speaker 2: know is it true that they drink by licking water
Speaker 2: off their bellies.
Speaker 4: Flying foxes do drink by kind of belly flopping into
Speaker 4: river water, and when they come up, there's a bunch
Speaker 4: of water clings to their fur and they drink that.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just like dunking your hair in the sink
Speaker 2: and then sucking on as you go back your day.
Speaker 2: Tons of you had the foresight to submit questions about
Speaker 2: bad eyes, such as Gracie and Gretchen and a few
Speaker 2: others ask if there's any truth to the same blind
Speaker 2: as a bat, and does batvision vary from species to species?
Speaker 2: What's the range of eyesight for bats?
Speaker 4: It varies from species to species. But I don't know
Speaker 4: of any bath that doesn't probably see fairly well. Their
Speaker 4: baths that have very small eyes, and we wonder how
Speaker 4: well they see. But most baths that have been tested
Speaker 4: certainly see fine. Oh. In fact, some even see color.
Speaker 4: What's cool, though, is that using sound alone, bats can
Speaker 4: see everything we see, except perhaps in some cases color.
Speaker 4: But they can also see things we can't see because
Speaker 4: by looking at this table, you do not know if
Speaker 4: that's foam rubber painted over, or if that's hard wood.
Speaker 4: The bat would know.
Speaker 2: And how is that echolocation working? Is it similar to Wales?
Speaker 2: Some listeners wanted to know. Patrons Helena, Dave Woodriff, Curious, DNA,
Speaker 2: y'all wanted to hear about echolocation and sonar.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been estimated by the Don Griffin, the guy
Speaker 4: who discovered bat echolocation. He estimated that it was on
Speaker 4: a what per what ouns for rounds basis billions of
Speaker 4: times more efficient than anything ever developed by humans.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, have you heard of there are a
Speaker 6: few people who are not cited who are blind to
Speaker 6: use echolocation themselves to avoid obstacles.
Speaker 5: Have you heard about that?
Speaker 4: All bats have been modeled. They've been used as models
Speaker 4: for developing aids for the blind to navigate. In fact,
Speaker 4: the military is using bat models now to try to
Speaker 4: develop artificial bats that fly into anime territory despite on the.
Speaker 2: Enemy, like little tiny baby drones.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just the little ones.
Speaker 2: Now, A few people wanted to know about citizen and
Speaker 2: community science programs, like Elizabeth Alien, Clara Simpson, and Janine Williams,
Speaker 2: who asked a bit too humbly, what is the best
Speaker 2: thing us plubs could do to support that conservation? Also,
Speaker 2: I had to look up plubs because I was like,
Speaker 2: is it pleaves or plubs? Apparently it's plubs. Now. One
Speaker 2: thing this podcast episode is doing is tossing some money
Speaker 2: toward Merlin Tuttle dot org. Every week we donate to
Speaker 2: a foundation of the ologists choosing and this one was
Speaker 2: very easy. Merlin Tuttle has been working for fifty years
Speaker 2: to help in back conservation and Merlin Tuttle dot org
Speaker 2: is an amazing resource. So a donation for last week's
Speaker 2: episode and this week's episode will go to Merlin title
Speaker 2: dot org. And there are sponsors who make those donations possible,
Speaker 2: so you may be hearing a few words about them. Okay,
Speaker 2: back to your questions about community science programs. I need
Speaker 2: Williams and some others wanted to know what's the best
Speaker 2: thing that community citizen scientists can do to support back conservation.
Speaker 4: The first thing you do is help your neighbors and
Speaker 4: friends get over unfounded fears of bats. There's the mind
Speaker 4: to killer. The single most prevalent reason that I have
Speaker 4: seen worldwide for destroying large numbers of bats is fear.
Speaker 4: I've got pictures of piles of batbones in a cave
Speaker 4: in Mexico that where the owner had sealed it shut
Speaker 4: with hundreds of thousands inside. I have been at places
Speaker 4: where millions were burned in caves by just putting old
Speaker 4: car tires in the entrance and dwsed in the kerosene,
Speaker 4: lining it on fire. I was told by colleagues that
Speaker 4: there's this beautiful bat cave in this place. I should
Speaker 4: go there. If I went to Kenya. I went there
Speaker 4: and it had all been bulldozed over, and the owner said, well,
Speaker 4: you know, I built house just a quarter mile away,
Speaker 4: and everybody told me that that if I didn't get
Speaker 4: rid of those bats, they would move from the cave
Speaker 4: into my house. Those bats would never cared a bit
Speaker 4: about his house. He had stayed right in the cave.
Speaker 4: But people, you know, just in the last couple of years,
Speaker 4: it's even been on National Public Radio that bats are
Speaker 4: arguably among the most dangerous animals on our planet. In
Speaker 4: an NPR story that's probably still there and can be
Speaker 4: looked up, they report is almost a direct quote. When
Speaker 4: bats are flying overhead, beware that poop that falls on
Speaker 4: your shoulder may be ebola. And not long after that aired,
Speaker 4: I was down at the Congress Avenue bridge. A gal
Speaker 4: saw me and realized that I probably knew something about bats,
Speaker 4: and she was very concerned. They're there with their husband
Speaker 4: and said, can you tell tell me, am I safe
Speaker 4: kind of bat poop on me here? And I knew
Speaker 4: she'd been listening to NPR radio and these wild stories
Speaker 4: linking bets to every kind of conceivable dangerous thing. It
Speaker 4: gets back in my opinion, well, It starts with the
Speaker 4: fact that Raby's treatment is so lucrative. I mean, just
Speaker 4: look at the difference of treeing a dog and a
Speaker 4: human right, I mean talk about lucrative.
Speaker 2: So Merlin has a blog post about it, and he
Speaker 2: says he usually loves NPR but was deeply, deeply disappointed
Speaker 2: by this. And of course, once again, do you have
Speaker 2: a job or pastime that involves encounters or permanent handling
Speaker 2: of wildlife? Not a bad idea to get a Raby's vaccine.
Speaker 2: We did cover Raby's stats, which are much lower than
Speaker 2: public perception in part one, but these patrons asked about
Speaker 2: Raby's and rabies vaccines.
Speaker 5: Paul D.
Speaker 2: Simmons, Margaret A. Backer, Reny, Emily Martinez, deb Nervous and
Speaker 2: Brandy Mandy Bender, mattz Clement, Kitlin O'Connell, Eric Mahanka, Sarah Greer,
Speaker 2: don A Wald, Alissa Wearing Crisper, and Lauren Eggert Crowe
Speaker 2: and I will repeat the disclaimer from part one. Doctor
Speaker 2: Merlin Tittle reminds us he and other bat researchers, like vets,
Speaker 2: they have received pre exposure vaccination against rabies that protects
Speaker 2: against defensive bites from animals that they might handle who
Speaker 2: are unfamiliar. Now unprotected people bitten by any animal should
Speaker 2: seek advice regarding a possible need to be vaccinated or
Speaker 2: have the animal tested for rabies. But Catherine Stacey asked,
Speaker 2: can the bats get the vaccine? Is there a bait
Speaker 2: laced with raybies vaccine for bats like what's used for
Speaker 2: other wildlife such as foxes and raccoons. What's going on
Speaker 2: with that? As someone asked about giving bat vaccines like
Speaker 2: they might do without other wildlife, like if vaccinating bats
Speaker 2: for rabies is even a thing that's worth looking into.
Speaker 4: I was part of a discussion and actually have a
Speaker 4: paper I believe in press now in which that is discussed.
Speaker 4: I happen to be one of there are several authors.
Speaker 4: I'm one that says I don't think it's worth it.
Speaker 2: Okay, This next sunny or perhaps not so sunny question
Speaker 2: was asked by Leanne Schuster, A zamb And Amelia Hines
Speaker 2: and a lot of well on that topic, A lot
Speaker 2: of listeners have the question if you see a bat
Speaker 2: during the day, is it a bad sign?
Speaker 4: Not necessarily depends on where the bat is. If the
Speaker 4: bats hanging in a normal position, where that species lives.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I have plenty of times walked
Speaker 4: under a tree, and I know what kind of leaves.
Speaker 4: Bets that live under leaves like to hang on and
Speaker 4: I'll look up, Oh there's a bat. Well that BET's doing.
Speaker 4: He's perfectly normal. That's not a problem. Yeah. If the
Speaker 4: bat is out on the ground or out where a
Speaker 4: bird could easily catch it in the daytime, then that
Speaker 4: bat is almost certainly sick. Now that doesn't mean he's rabid.
Speaker 4: Nine percent of such bats aren't rabid, but five percent are.
Speaker 4: Most of the statistics you hear about rabies and bats
Speaker 4: come from there. Taken from the Health Department only gets
Speaker 4: suspect bats submitted. If the bat's not acting abnormally, it
Speaker 4: doesn't get submitted. So this is like deciding what proportion
Speaker 4: of Americans have cancer based on checking cancer clinics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that works. Now, the next question was asked by
Speaker 2: a lot of you, and I mean approximately one million.
Speaker 2: So I will say your name's with my mouth very fast.
Speaker 2: This is a white hot topic.
Speaker 5: It was right under our nosis.
Speaker 2: Now, even though Merlin's a fun guy, I had to
Speaker 2: ask him this tiny pummer white nose syndrome asked about
Speaker 2: by Ruby Austrick, first time question asker, Jesse Spencer, Emily Jean,
Speaker 2: Alicia Giland Margaret Matera Bronwin, Trum McDonald, b and K Boys,
Speaker 2: Quentin McKenna, lurs and Jennifer Downey, Live Schaeffer, Samantha Bold,
Speaker 2: Pandora Two, Hannah M Childers, Acacia Sprague, Lauren Harder, Sarah Luchesi,
Speaker 2: Cassie Flint, Leah Wilbur and Ana Thompson, jcw Adam Weaver,
Speaker 2: tanging At, Mandy Bender, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Roonda Grizzle, Madeline Rodgers,
Speaker 2: who says, where is white nose syndrome the worst and
Speaker 2: what species does it affect the most? And how bad
Speaker 2: is it? What can we do? What's going on with
Speaker 2: white nose? And now when it comes to white nose,
Speaker 2: what can be done to help them?
Speaker 4: The most important thing that could be done now to
Speaker 4: help bats that have populations that have crashed because of
Speaker 4: white nose syndrome is to help protect and restore more
Speaker 4: roosting habitat, more habitat in general, but particularly roosting.
Speaker 2: Habitat and now roosting habitat that's the overnight sleepy.
Speaker 4: Time mostly where they hibernate.
Speaker 5: Oh well, that was the next question. Do they eat
Speaker 5: in winter? Do they hibernate?
Speaker 4: The bats that have been hardest hit by white nose
Speaker 4: indrome are bats that hibernate in caves all winter. There's
Speaker 4: very little food in a temperate zone from you know,
Speaker 4: you might get away with staying active in the winter here,
Speaker 4: but you go a little bit north of here and
Speaker 4: throughout most of the United States and Canada, there are
Speaker 4: no insects available to eat at night, so you have
Speaker 4: to either migrate south for the winter or hibernate in
Speaker 4: a cave. And the biggest losses of all time have
Speaker 4: occurred when their hibernating caves were destroyed and are disturbed.
Speaker 4: And here's the problem. Years ago, I know evenly would
Speaker 4: say the cavers. What's the problem with saving less than
Speaker 4: one percent of caves for bats, leaves all the rest
Speaker 4: for you. Well, it's not quite that way. We humans
Speaker 4: want the same caves that the bats want, So we're
Speaker 4: competing for the one percent that have gigantic entrances, huge passages,
Speaker 4: multiple you know, complexity. Those are the first ones that
Speaker 4: we humans want, and so many huge numbers of our
Speaker 4: us baths were lost before anybody even reported that they
Speaker 4: were present.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that can be done to medicate them
Speaker 2: at all? Or to medicate yeah, can you give them
Speaker 2: anti fungal No?
Speaker 4: No, okay, I'm absolutely adamant about that. I believe that
Speaker 4: more harm is being done than help in trying to
Speaker 4: find a cure for white no syndrome.
Speaker 2: It's more just trying to recover the populations.
Speaker 4: Since since this began, there have been cures found. I mean,
Speaker 4: I remember a rehaber that just mixed a dilute vinegar
Speaker 4: and water mixture and could cure white no syndrome. But
Speaker 4: when they banded all those baths and released them back
Speaker 4: in the while, they got in again and died. So
Speaker 4: curing because you find something that'll kill the fungus is
Speaker 4: not a cure that keeps you from getting reinfected. And
Speaker 4: even if you found something that would prevent reinfection, imagine
Speaker 4: trying to treat all the bats or the locations. There
Speaker 4: must be billions of locations infected with that fungus. Now,
Speaker 4: I mean, just Mammoth Cave alone, that used to house
Speaker 4: many millions of bats, has more than four hundred miles
Speaker 4: of passages imagine treating all those with something that's going
Speaker 4: to kill this fungus, and then understand that this fungus
Speaker 4: is only one of thousands of kinds of fungi, and
Speaker 4: if you found something that would kill it, you might
Speaker 4: cause a horrible problem chain reaction, destroying whole ecosystems that
Speaker 4: we don't even know much about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, is the best course of action.
Speaker 2: To let it run its course and make sure that
Speaker 2: they have enough places to re and just repopulate.
Speaker 4: If you go to my website again and look under
Speaker 4: resources under white nose syndrome. I did a thorough investigation
Speaker 4: a few months ago of what has happened where it
Speaker 4: has passed over the last decade, and we're seeing clear
Speaker 4: signs of recovery. Genetically resistant bats are apparently recovering.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, that's promising. That's the good news, and so
Speaker 2: it's wonderful that we have Merlin going to bat for
Speaker 2: these critters. I hate myself.
Speaker 4: I did find evidence that it's very interesting. There are
Speaker 4: colonies that have fully recovered that drop by at least
Speaker 4: eighty percent when it passed that are now fully recovered.
Speaker 4: The ones I'm thinking about, many of them have been
Speaker 4: banded by researchers, and when they look for them, they
Speaker 4: never find the hibernation. This means that those survivors are
Speaker 4: doing so well, haven't had to put up with humans
Speaker 4: trying to save them. Let me point out that before
Speaker 4: white nose syndrome was a problem. I mean, I founded
Speaker 4: the first two endangered species recovery teams for bats in America,
Speaker 4: and we were adamant that nobody would go in disturb
Speaker 4: bats during hibernation more than once every two years, even
Speaker 4: to census for the government to tell how they're doing
Speaker 4: and retrospect. Now I think we should have made that
Speaker 4: every three to five years, because I have again on
Speaker 4: my website published resources about the cost of hibernation disturbance.
Speaker 4: When you go into a cave and force about to
Speaker 4: wake up out of hibernation in the wintertime, he burns
Speaker 4: up on average thirty to sixty days worth of stored
Speaker 4: fat reserve. This fungus is killing bats because that makes them.
Speaker 4: You know, like if you've ever had chiggers or poison ivy,
Speaker 4: you don't sleep well at night, you wake up scratching. Well,
Speaker 4: that's what's happened to the baths. They're waking up out
Speaker 4: of hibernation. It's very costly, and that's why they're coming
Speaker 4: out before spring. They're desperate, they're starving, and that's why
Speaker 4: they're dying. Well, imagine, once white nose syndrome came along,
Speaker 4: there were some places where researchers are going in there
Speaker 4: half a dozen times or more winter and sometimes spending hours.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, and they're even more tired.
Speaker 4: That would have been enough to knock the population that
Speaker 4: cave out without any fungal problem.
Speaker 2: So let those snoozy, little floppy faced fuzz puppets sleep people,
Speaker 2: get out of their beautiful vulvenoses, let them catch some sease.
Speaker 4: Evolution is going to play its course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 4: And I don't know of any evidence yet that any
Speaker 4: species is going to go extinct because of this, all
Speaker 4: the ones I know of where it's passed by far
Speaker 4: enough we'll go to have an idea seem to be
Speaker 4: hanging on. I won't call it thriving, but hanging on
Speaker 4: and showing signs now of recovery.
Speaker 2: So if you're worried about about the bats, don't lose
Speaker 2: all your sleep over just white nose.
Speaker 4: White nose is only affecting right now less than a
Speaker 4: dozen species out of forty some species in the US.
Speaker 4: They don't all have to hibernate in caves. Some species
Speaker 4: are actually probably benefiting because they don't have to compete
Speaker 4: with the ones that are dying from white nose syndrome.
Speaker 4: And I'm not going to say that's beneficial overall. The
Speaker 4: good side may be that we have suddenly become much
Speaker 4: more aware of bats and how harmful it could be
Speaker 4: to lose them, and more people have learned about bats
Speaker 4: and care because of white nose syndrome. But I do
Speaker 4: believe all the colonies that have been best monitored that
Speaker 4: I know of are starting to recover. That's good and
Speaker 4: I'm very optimistic. One thing that I'm very concerned about
Speaker 4: is working with sport cavers, who often discover old roosting
Speaker 4: sites and caves that nobody else knows about. During this time,
Speaker 4: government agencies have blanket told the cavers oftentimes they just
Speaker 4: couldn't go caving, and I actually made enemies out of
Speaker 4: former allies. And we need those cavers out there telling
Speaker 4: us where our places are that we need to protect,
Speaker 4: and often they're very happy to do it for us
Speaker 4: if we just cooperate with them Instead of just saying
Speaker 4: you can't go caving.
Speaker 2: Anymore, yeah, is to try to get them invested in
Speaker 2: it as well. Merlin Tuttle, National treasure Skilled Diplomat. Now
Speaker 2: on Merlin Tuttle dot org you can find a few
Speaker 2: fifteen minute video titled the Power of Winning Friends and
Speaker 2: not Battles Merlin Tuttle's conservation philosophy.
Speaker 5: I love him. Have I mentioned he's an American hero?
Speaker 2: Okay? So it's dark and mysterious in caves, and how
Speaker 2: do cavers tell if there have been past bat parties?
Speaker 4: They stained the limestone, and you can tell by the
Speaker 4: contours and the stain on the limestone. You can actually
Speaker 4: estimate roughly how many bats lived there in the past.
Speaker 4: And there are plenty of those places where bats could
Speaker 4: be restored, even millions. And I personally have seen at
Speaker 4: least at least multi millions restored where there were none.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, not multimillions in one cave, but like in
Speaker 4: one Tennessee cave it was down to sixty five gray
Speaker 4: bats and now it's up to a quarter million. There
Speaker 4: are many encouraging instances where we can see that we
Speaker 4: are re estate bablishing hundreds of thousands of baths. It's
Speaker 4: not all about millions dying. There are things that we
Speaker 4: can do to restore habitat. We can put up bathouses
Speaker 4: in our backyards, and we should be very concerned about
Speaker 4: caves that can be restored. Years ago, when everybody was
Speaker 4: scared death of rabies, commercial cave owners and they don't
Speaker 4: like call themselves commercial cave owners. They used to not
Speaker 4: want any baths in their caves because people are so
Speaker 4: frightened and freaked out by them. But we have a
Speaker 4: cave right here in North Austin now. It's a commercialized
Speaker 4: tour cave and it's got quite a few hibernating baths
Speaker 4: in it that have learned to ignore people because it's
Speaker 4: very well protected and nobody ever harms them. And people
Speaker 4: walk right by within two meters of those baths and
Speaker 4: the bats don't even pay any attention. And you know,
Speaker 4: the bats are very good at adapting to us, if
Speaker 4: we'll only adapt to get along with them. Right And
Speaker 4: despite all this stuff about how bats are supposed to
Speaker 4: be such dangerous disease carriers, let me point out that
Speaker 4: they have one of the world's finest track records. I
Speaker 4: don't know if any animal has a finer track record
Speaker 4: than bats at living in close association with people without
Speaker 4: causing human sickness.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's so cool to think that they might
Speaker 2: be all around us and we just don't get a
Speaker 2: chance to necessarily see them. And Ryan and Jasmine want
Speaker 2: to know what material is closest to that of bat wings,
Speaker 2: like how can you make a batsuit?
Speaker 4: I have seen comparisons in terms of strength where I
Speaker 4: think there's actually a medical doctor that wrote this said
Speaker 4: that the average bat wing was nineteen times sturdier than
Speaker 4: a surgeon's glove. Oh my gosh, that's the best statistic
Speaker 4: I can come up with on wings.
Speaker 2: So I looked into it and there's skin that stretches
Speaker 2: like a living drum between those gorgeous, freakishly long fashioned
Speaker 2: model fingers. That's called a potassium or petasia plural, and
Speaker 2: it's two thin layers of skin with a last in
Speaker 2: between it. Also Listener no Fundacal says she got slapped
Speaker 2: once in the face by one and it felt leathery.
Speaker 2: And I don't know why she calls herself no fundical
Speaker 2: because that's a top notch story. Boy howdy, she's fine.
Speaker 2: So moving on to things that are not excellent. What
Speaker 2: is something about bats or about your job that you
Speaker 2: really don't like? What sucks about being a chiropterologist?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what's the.
Speaker 2: Worst part about your job? The thing that you're like, oh, this, the.
Speaker 4: Worst part is just I have founded more than one
Speaker 4: conservation organization and spent most of my life. You vowed
Speaker 4: to that, And the worst part for me is day
Speaker 4: to day wanting to be sure that I find the
Speaker 4: financial resources to keep those good people that follow me
Speaker 4: and want to help it's financially healthy and their families. Okay,
Speaker 4: it isn't easy even now to raise money for bats.
Speaker 4: People and organizations will line up and compete with each
Speaker 4: other to protect cute things like pandas. And the crazy
Speaker 4: thing is there's nothing uncute about bats. It's just the belief.
Speaker 4: Here's another one of our craziest about humans. You know,
Speaker 4: we perceive anything. The bigger the eyes, the more beautiful.
Speaker 4: You don't want a very big nose, you don't want
Speaker 4: to be very heavy set.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, quick aside. For more dirt on incredibly screwed
Speaker 2: up beauty standards, listen to the two part Coology episode
Speaker 2: with psychologist doctor Bene we did not discuss pandas in it,
Speaker 2: but it is otherwise very juicy and life changing.
Speaker 4: What animal by those tokens should we dislike the most?
Speaker 4: The panda, elephants.
Speaker 2: The elephants, okay, I was saying, the panta is.
Speaker 4: A little Everybody loves elephants. And you want to know
Speaker 4: another interesting statistic, more humans are killed annually in the
Speaker 4: United States by elephants than by.
Speaker 2: Bats by the bye. I looked up most deadly animals
Speaker 2: to humans, and the top two are mosquitoes and humans.
Speaker 2: Bats are like, don't look at me, man, I'm eating
Speaker 2: the mosquitoes that are killing you. And I've never been
Speaker 2: caught up in a life insurance scandal that's on y'all.
Speaker 4: That just shows how rare it is for anybody killed
Speaker 4: by bat.
Speaker 2: I think what you will do for bats is what
Speaker 2: people did for whales in the seventies and elephants. I
Speaker 2: think that I think that your work alone may bring
Speaker 2: bats into human consciousness where they are not just to
Speaker 2: in October decal or decoration.
Speaker 4: You know, well, you know that's that's one of my
Speaker 4: primary purposes and being a photographer until I learned to
Speaker 4: take pictures of bats as they really are. You could
Speaker 4: almost never see a picture of bat that wasn't snarling
Speaker 4: in self defense. You take a little bat whose head
Speaker 4: is no bigger than my thumb, provoke him. He thinks
Speaker 4: you're about to eat him. You take a picture, blow
Speaker 4: it up to page size. Looks like a saber tooth
Speaker 4: tiger on the attack. Who in the world wouldn't be
Speaker 4: afraid of this critter?
Speaker 2: And what kind of speeds do you have to use?
Speaker 5: What kind of camera?
Speaker 2: What kind of speeds and lenses do you have to
Speaker 2: use to get these gorgeous pictures?
Speaker 4: You don't have to take everything that fast, But now
Speaker 4: I take almost all my pictures at least if they're
Speaker 4: flash pictures, they're taking it about a forty thousands of
Speaker 4: a second.
Speaker 5: Well, they're gorgeous.
Speaker 4: Well, the pictures have been a major, major part of
Speaker 4: the public turnaround when it comes to bats. Seeing is believing,
Speaker 4: hearing is not quite there.
Speaker 2: And now the best part of your job, your favorite
Speaker 2: thing about bats? Your favorite thing about your job.
Speaker 4: Anybody that associates with me would tell you loud and
Speaker 4: clear that I am a bat photography addict. I love
Speaker 4: getting great pictures that nobody else has thought of getting,
Speaker 4: And I will sit out for seemingly endlessly waiting for
Speaker 4: something to happen, and usually it's for the purpose of
Speaker 4: promoting conservation. Everybody knows. I'll spend ten times more time
Speaker 4: trying to get a good shot of a bat catching
Speaker 4: a insect that costs billions of dollars in crop losses
Speaker 4: as an insect that's just pretty or ugly or something.
Speaker 4: But people ask me what I do in my leisure time.
Speaker 4: I study beats and photographed baths for vacation time. I've
Speaker 4: had a lifelong vacation.
Speaker 5: That is the best.
Speaker 4: And one of my favorite things is developing, perfecting my
Speaker 4: ability to change attitudes for the better for the environment,
Speaker 4: and that over time takes a lot of skill. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you learn to ask questions rather than debating people who've
Speaker 4: done things you disagree with.
Speaker 2: I think you would have been a great politician, but
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you helped the bats instead.
Speaker 4: Probably more productive. I didn't really say that.
Speaker 2: This has been just years in the making and quite
Speaker 2: possibly my favorite conversation I've ever had. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for letting me come to your place, your roost here.
Speaker 4: Well, you're very welcome, and just know that we didn't
Speaker 4: even cover a tenth of what should have been talked
Speaker 4: about about bats. So if you get a big encore,
Speaker 4: come on back. You'll be welcome.
Speaker 2: You do.
Speaker 4: You a great job.
Speaker 2: Thank you, doctor Tuttle. That's amazing. So there you have it.
Speaker 2: Shamelessly ask the sharpest minds the dopiest questions because that
Speaker 2: is how they learned, and people who love things want
Speaker 2: to share those things. Now. Of course, follow Merlin Tuttle
Speaker 2: on all social platforms. He and his social media right
Speaker 2: hand Teresa and Nikta, are both amazing. He is on
Speaker 2: Twitter at Merlin's Bats, Instagram at Merlin Tuttle Photo, on
Speaker 2: Facebook at Merlin Title Bat Conservation, and of course Merlin
Speaker 2: tittle dot org has all those links. That website is
Speaker 2: an incredible resource for photos of bats and articles and
Speaker 2: blog posts for Merlin and future trips in the field
Speaker 2: with him, so check that out. The worst thing about
Speaker 2: his work, and he has drank out of cave puddles,
Speaker 2: is making sure it's all funded, so of course a
Speaker 2: second donation went to his organization for this episode. To
Speaker 2: support you can go to Merlin title dot org. Now.
Speaker 2: Links for this episode are up at aliwar dot com.
Speaker 2: Slash ologies slash Chiropterrology, and there are links in the
Speaker 2: show notes that are also shirts and hats and tots
Speaker 2: and Ologies merch available at aliwar dot com. Thank you
Speaker 2: Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch for managing that, and also
Speaker 2: check out their comedy podcast You Are That I spilled
Speaker 2: maguts on their October twenty eighth Halloween episode, so get
Speaker 2: all up in that. Thank you to admins of the
Speaker 2: Ologies podcast Facebook group, Aaron Talbert and Hinnalippo. Thank you
Speaker 2: to all the Ologies transcribers helmed by Emily White. Transcripts
Speaker 2: and bleeped episodes are at aliwar dot com slash Ologies
Speaker 2: Dash Extras. There's a link in the show notes. Happy
Speaker 2: birthday to gismologist Simon Yetch, just one of my favorite people.
Speaker 2: Thanks for existing. Thank you to assistant editor Jared Sleeper
Speaker 2: of the mental health podcast My Good, Bad Brain and
Speaker 2: the mustachioed bat, which I believe is a species of
Speaker 2: bet Stephen Ray Morris of the per Cast Cat Pod
Speaker 2: and the Dino Pod Sea Jurassic Right, who edits all
Speaker 2: these pieces together each week And if you listen all
Speaker 2: the way to the end, you know I tell you
Speaker 2: a secret each week and this week. The secret is
Speaker 2: that I'm recording these asides from a hotel room in Austin.
Speaker 2: I'm here shooting for CBS, and I'm pretty sad because
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm gonna get to see Marlin again
Speaker 2: while i'm here, but hopefully I'll be back in Austin soon. Austin,
Speaker 2: You're a great town. What's up with that? Why are
Speaker 2: you so good? This? Pretty?
Speaker 5: People are nice?
Speaker 2: Food is good.
Speaker 5: It's got a bunch of antique malls.
Speaker 2: Also, one more secret. I had fu today and it
Speaker 2: was very onion heavy and I feel like my hands
Speaker 2: still smell like onions, and I can't figure that out
Speaker 2: because I didn't eat the soup with my hands and
Speaker 2: I've washed my hands several times. So I'm just alone
Speaker 2: smelling like onions and a Hampton in in Texas, Google
Speaker 2: and bat Dicks. This is the life I chose and.
Speaker 6: I love it.
Speaker 2: Okay, next week, I'm not going to tell you what
Speaker 2: the episode is, but I'm very stoked about it. Okay, Okay. Pacodermatology,
Speaker 2: hobbiology or doo zoology. Lithology is technology, meteorology, metterntology, ethnology,
Speaker 2: and seriology. Selenology.
Speaker 1: Look it it's freaking facts.