Batty for Bats!

Why do bats hang upside down? How did bats become associated with Dracula? What are some of the craziest bat species in the world that you've probably never heard of? Discover this and more as we answered the angel question, if batman was bitten by a radioactive bat, what powers would he have? So right off the bat? Why are we scared of bats? I'm using we loosely. I certainly love bats, and I know many of you do as well. I think the book Stella Luna did a great job

of removing some of the stigma against bats. But still, bats are creatures of the night and are associated with vampires, Halloween, haunted mansions, and other spooky stuff. They're often feared as carriers of rabies, as blood suckers, or as pests who will nest in your hair if you wear an attractive up to inside a cake. Today, we're going to explore some of these myths and show you that you really

shouldn't be afraid of bats well in most cases. Joining me today to get her blood sucked is bat Lever, writer and co host of the show night called Molly Lambert. Hello. Should I say lambat? You can say lambat? Or should I say Lambert Molly Lambat? Or should I say Lambert? Thank you so much for having me on today, Katie. I am so excited to talk about baths. I know I wrote this special for you because you mentioned you

like bats. I've been talking about baths a lot recently anyway. Uh, and then when you said it was a good idea to do it for an October episode, just all came together. Yes, it certainly did. I'm very excited for this because I think bats are one of the coolest groups of animals in the world. And it's also it's it's Halloween times. Yeah, I think I was like, I would like to know everything about bats, and you can provide that service. I don't.

There's such a They're so diverse that I'm there's no way we can cover in like an hour, in a few minutes, everything about bats, but I'm gonna try. We'll fly over the surface. So bats have a special place in folklore as spooky creatures, and it goes just beyond Halloween and vampires. There are many legends in cultures around the world and throughout history that feature the bat, and it's not always negative. So in ancient Egypt, bats were

thought to be defenders against demons. Hanging a bat over your doorway would stop disease toting demons from entering your home. In China, the bat is a symbol of happiness and good fortune. Uh And in Cherokee fables, birds and mammals were playing a game of ball when a small mouse like creature tried to join the mammals teams, but it was mocked and scorned by the larger animals. The birds took pity on the bat and fashion wings man out of a hide from a drum so he could join

the birds team, and therefore the bat was created. In the Creek version of this fable, the birds are the ones who reject the bat and the mammals give bird teeth and then that's how the bat happens. And then in Mayan folklore, the Miyan bat god Cama zalts is the death bat, which was a god of night, death and sacrifice. In one legend, he stole the plucked head off of a Mayan hero and hung the head up

on the god's ball court to play with. So it's interesting a few of these bats are their origin stories are in ball games or yeah, and they definitely makes sense for them to be associated with night because that's when they come out. I heard the thing about Chinese uh folklore about bats being good fortune in another documentary because apparently the word for bat sounds identical to the word for good fortune. That's right. There's like the five

baths like a homophone. Yeah, and then there's this really cool pattern motif of bats that is like the good fortune yeah logo. I love it, like the five bats of fortune. Yeah. I like when a creature has a bad reputation and then you can explain why it's not deserved. They're like a boy They're like a boy band. You have five bats. You think they're kind of bad boys, but they're really sweet they're all the cute one, the

bad boy, and the sweet one, the sensitive bat. And you know, they do sometimes have a more negative connotation and culture as we know. In the eighteen book Fairy Legends and Traditions of South Ireland, bats were fabled to hijack human bodies and take them on joy ride. So here's a quote from the book. Quote the Fuca, I think is how it's pronounced. The Fuka would take his victims on great adventures as far away as the moon.

He compels the man of it has got possession and who is incapable of making any resistance, to go through various adventures in a short time. It hurries with him over precipices, carries him up into the moon and down to the bottom of the sea. Uh So, basically, the Fuca, which is like some kind of bat demon, would take over your body and just right it around town. Sounds fun, It does sounds fun. I don't know. I feel like

in terms of demonic possession, that's pretty cool. If they take you to the moon, the bottom of the ocean, anything where you get to fly, It's like, who's going to say no to that? Come on, and one of the big questions that I had, and I think some of our listeners would have, is how bats got associated with Dracula and vampires in general. So Steve from Twitter asks, why did bats get the blood sucking reputation when very

few types of bats drink blood? What about leeches, most mosquitoes, etcetera, um, And I think that this is bats became a really prominent and popular culture following Dracula, and then even though there's only like three species that drink blood, Dracula is such a phenomenon in terms of a popular book that when bats entered the public consciousness, the vampire bat, the

blood sucking bat, the connection to Dracula really kind of cemented. So, according to an article from the Florida Bat Conservation Center by Elizabeth Miller, vampire folklore predated the discovery of vampire bats, at least in the case of Spanish explorers. When they invaded, explored whatever you want to call it, invaded, um anyways, invaded Central and South America. The Spaniards quote unquote discovered bats who would lap up blood, and they called them vampires.

Dracula wasn't the first man bat. There was Varney the Vampire, which was written fifty years before brom Stoker's Dracula, which featured a bat shaped vampire. Man. You know, here comes of our Ernie. I guess with a name like that, it's going to be hard to become the most famous vampire. Doesn't have this quite ring of Dracula. It sounds like it sounds like a down home kind of Midwest. Yeah, it's making me think about Earnest. Yeah, Earnest goes to Transylvania.

Who's Jim Barney is. Yeah, exactly plays Earnest. But also it has a real twine to it. But I like the idea of kind of a country vampire vampire. Just you know, I don't like the vampires always have to be so aristocratic, right, right, you have a vampire who's like, now, now, hold on their listen. I'm gonna suck your blood, but don't take it too personal. Well, there's also a connection

between bats and uh farming. Yeah, yeah, because bats are often especially vampire bats are often pests when it comes to cattle. Oh well, I was going to say the opposite, that they're positive because they eat all the apprently like corn fields and stuff like that. Yeah, and sucked of wars. Bats are actually extremely important. Right, it's the vampire bats that give the insectivore bats the bad reputation. But even

vampire bats, it's not like they drain an animal. They just like kind of take a little bit, like a mosquito, a little bit. That Really the only danger from vampire bats is the potential to spread rabies, which is really overstated. I've heard it is. Yeah, so we'll get into that into depth a little bit later. What's interesting is that misconception you mentioned about vampire bats is really what inspired, uh,

the transformation from Dracula into a bat. So when brom Stoker was writing Dracula, he read this news story about um vampire bat, and uh he misunderstood or exaggerated the details from the story. So in his book he writes, uh, quote, one of those big bats that they call the vampires has got at a mare during the night, and there wasn't enough blood in her to let her stand up. So, like you mentioned van here about to teeny tiny, they're little tiny cuties. They can't drain and you like a

mosquito that could drain you is terrifying. That is true that, yeah, just a huge bloated mosquito I mean, really what you were saying about leeches. We talked about leeches on Nightcall, and we recently read a horror story for our book club with this ginge eedo book. Smashed has a book. Oh. The first story is about vampire baths and it's really scary.

But it doesn't blame the vampire baths. Yeah, nor should it um, but leeches, Like it kind of just makes sense that bats are more photogenic, yeah, perhaps than leeches. I mean leeches, leaches are scarier because they have their face like bats are cute. Yeah, and I would say that just in terms of the awareness. Leeches not as kind of aware and as smart as a bat, So I genuinely feel less empathy towards a leech. I don't hate leeches though, because they aren't necessarily that bad. We

probably don't hate any creature. Well, no, that's not true. I hate fleas because of what Because like when I find a flee on my dog and like bring me to health, right, I feel that way about all insects. Worm Like, I like them in theory, but then if they're like in my house, I don't want them to be there, and I try to get them out. I actually don't mind insects, Like in my house. It's it's specific to like if there's a pest that's bothering my dog, like a tick or flee. I get really angry at

it because I take it personally. Well. I watched like a local Pennsylvania documentary about baths, and it had this whole section about like how everybody knows that baths come to live in your house during the winter, um and it encouraged people to let the bats stay in your house because they eat bugs and they don't really hurt you. Yeah,

I mean, in general, they aren't really that harmful. I would say probably better to try to set up bad houses outside of the house, just because you know, humans and bats, it's not it's never a good situation to either way to kind of try to interfere with them or have them in the same space shares like a birdhouse. It's basically like a birdhouse. Yeah, and we actually we're going to talk a little bit about the houses too. I think like the fear of bats really comes from

the vampire bat. And you know that's as we stated, like there's obviously other bats that are not they don't drink blood. In fact of the species of bats, only three drink blood. All are native to the America's so they're all really big. The vampire bat, No, no, they're tiny. Yeah what am I thinking? Of the fruit the flying foxes fruit bats tend to be bigger. Yeah. Vampire bats have really rapid metabolisms because they're so small. Uh, they

need to get a blood meal about every night. Um, and if they go too long between feedings they'll die. Kind of like how hummingbirds. They're so small and they have such a rapid metabolism they need to constantly eat. Um. Luckily blood is more I guess a little bit more sustaining nectar, so they only need to feed about once a night. They do. This is a cute thing, so they kind of have a social safety net for if

a bat doesn't get a meal. Uh. So, well fed bats will trade their food with a neighbor for grooming. So by trade food, I mean regurgitated into their mouth. Yeah, this comes up in the ginge etostoria. It's adorable though, because they'll if you, you know, if you're a little bat and you're like, oh, I'm so hungry, if you just like groom another bat, the bat will regurgitate blood

into your mouth. It's a beautiful thing. Especially females. When there's a new mother, they're especially willing to help her out, which I think is such an interestingly empathetic social relationship. Um and uh, so let's talk about these three species of vampire bats. So there's the common vampire bat, which I think is what people are most familiar with. There's the white winged vampire bat, which is very similar to the common vat pire bat. And then there's the hairy

legged vampire bat, which is really interesting, little cutie. So the common vampire bat is found in Mexico, Central and South America mostly. Uh, they feed on livestock. They won't. They don't drain them dry of blood. That's just impossible. They prefer it. One thing is true, they do prefer horses to cattle, so at least brom Stoker got that right.

But they will whatever is basically available to them. They're opportunistic. Um. They're kind of superpowered because they have noses that are full of little dimples that are that have a protein that's able us sense heat. So they can literally smell where the best um vein is to suck blood from.

And so they find these warm spots on the animal where the blood flow is the greatest, and their saliva contains an anticoagulant uh, so the blood doesn't clot and they can lamp it up more easily, so they don't suck blood. They don't use suction. They make a little like tiny incision and then lap it up kind of like a cat, like a kiddy. Yeah, with wings and tiny um. Their tongue has a groove in it that's so narrow. The blood travels up the back mouth via

capillary action, so like a little tiny uh. It's how fluids travel through plants as well, or up a paper towel. So it's just kind of like soaking up the blood. Um. And so the white winged vampire bat is essentially the same, just a little different looking. It's got a more tan color and its wings are tipped in white. But the hairy legged vampire bat is pretty amazing. So it's it's adorable to me. It kind of looks like Stitch from and Stitch. Can you see that? They're also cute and

they all have such different kinds of faces. I know, this one looks like it's got a little smile. It's adorable. It's found in South and Central America, in southern Mexico. UM. But instead of feeding on cattle, it feeds on birds. Uh. Mostly it feeds on birds in the wild, but it also feeds on chickens because there's such an abundance of chickens that have been domesticated UM, which I think is

kind of funny. It's like, you know, the the Cherokee and Creek folklore about bats and birds, and like the ball game. It's like it's like they their rivals with these birds, and they, you know, have kind of antagonistic relationship with birds. I think it's funny. They have to fight for the air exactly for the air space they've established a no fly zone. What is interesting about this bat. Now, most vampire bats do not bite humans. They don't um

or they don't they won't feed on humans. They don't bite them intentionally. The bites would be because they're scared. UM. However, the hairy legged vampire bat has been recorded with human blood in its feces uh. And it's thought that because human farmers may live in close contact with chickens, especially low income farmers, the bats are are opportunistically feeding on the humans um, which is actually very interesting because it shows that these bats can kind of adapt to different

blood types, so from avian blood to mammalian blood. Of course, they're not gonna drain you dry of blood um. The only concern is the transmission of rabies, which is always a concern with any mammalian bite that you get any wild animal that bites you. But as we'll soon discuss, bats kind of get a bad rap when it comes to rabies that's maybe not as deserved. The majority of

bats do not drink blood. So many species of bats are insectivores, but they're also fishing bats who like swooped down to the water and like like grab little fish and you don't, which is it's pretty adorable. It's awesome. There are fruit bats. There are even bats that will feed on nectar like hummingbirds. So here's the trumpet nosed bat. I love it. He's got a really long snout uh and he held basically just like a hummingbird will feed

on nectar. They're just like little blood hummingbird. That's the perfect way to think of. Yeah, they're like if a hummingbird got bitten by a vampire and turn to do a bat their night night hummingbird night hummingbirds right exactly. And the lesser long nose bats, which are found in Arizona, New Mexico and Central America. Uh live in arid regions and they feed on nectar and in fact, they feed so much on flowers they will turn yellow after getting

covered in pollen. So they're great pollinators to the bats are pretty good for the environment. They help keep down insect populations, they help pollinate fruit and distribute fruit seeds, they help pollinate flowers. Um. They're They're amazing. They're basically like birds, Yes, exactly. They There's also so one more that that I think you'll like is the palid bat, which is from western Canada to Central Mexico, who is a desert bat who eats insects off the ground and

also eats scorpions. Um. And it doesn't actually use echolocation as much as it just listens for insects with its great hearing. Like how they're all opportunists, like whatever's around likely adaptable. Yeah, it's uh. They really are like Batman, where they just have like a utility belt of different traits. They're cooler than Batman. He does. Bats don't snitch. Yeah, exactly, these palid bats, do you actually release a foul odor when they're alarmed like a little skunk. That's cool. Yeah.

So bats do a lot of diverse things that I think people maybe aren't as aware of, like you may have heard of like fruit bats, insects eating bats, and vampire bats. But their range of behaviors is really incredible. They're in extremely diverse. Are they everywhere in the world? Um? Well, no, are not, like literally everywhere because like you know, I don't think they're in uh climates where it's too cold. Um,

there's no Arctic bath. There's no that I'm not. There are white bats though, so, but they are found in many, many different areas, So not just in the Americas. They're found in Europe and Africa and South America. Um. And we'll actually go through some of the crazier species that we find all over the world, and just a little bit is our fear of bats? Natural or learned? Researchers assessed the attitudes of Slovaki and children towards bats and

found that many of them were fearful. The researchers found a correlation between children's beliefs and myths about bats and their fear of them. Unfortunately, another study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology found that support for conservation of

animals is a bit of a beauty contest. The cute are the animals, the more likely surveyed people were to support conservation efforts, whereas quote unquote ugly species such as garter snakes, cave spiders, and ozark big eared bats were given the lowest support for environmental protection. Well, that seems downright unfair to bats. What is this high school? So let's dispel some of these myths and show you how

beautiful inside and out these creatures are. When we return, we'll look at the facts behind the bacts, I mean the bats, the bat facts. Now we're going to talk about some bat facts. No no, no, no, no, no, no bat facts. Sometimes human culture intersects with real bad behavior. Have you ever wondered why bats are so synonymous with Halloween. It could be the creep factor. They come out at night,

they've vne through soak your blood. Well, only some of them and only of your cow basically, but there may be another reason. When Irish immigrants fled the potato famine came to America, they brought with them the Celtic festival of sam Haine, in which celebrants would wear costumes to scare off ghosts. According to bat biologists Nate Fuller, these emigran who came to the US Northeast would have observed clouds of bats around October someone migration paths, some gluttonously

chowing down on insects before hibernation. So perhaps they associated these winged creature with the Halloween celebration simply due to the bats normal fall routine, or maybe that's what the bats want us to think. So I think it's interesting because bats are just so associated with fall. Um. They aren't, like, you know, exclusively a fall time creature, but those big bat swarms would happen around the fall in the Northeast

in America. Uh, and it's pretty. It's kind of like flocks of birds where it's sort of it's all inspiring to see that many bats all flying together. Yeah. I saw that for the first time like two years ago. Oh yeah, in person. Yeah, because we don't really have big I mean, maybe we do have them in Los Angeles, but not as much of the big flocks of them. I wonder if there's there's gotta be bats in Griffith Park there yeah, um, and in the Sequoias yeah. But just in a big national park I saw like a

billion bats. I thought it was park were you on? Um? It was a place called building way up in northern California, a friend's wedding. But I was like, oh, look at

that big flock of birds. Ain't no bird and they lived under a bridge, it seemed like, which would Yeah, that makes sense, makes sense, and that way you can hunt sacks and fish if you're a fish bat um, And that kind of leads into I asked listeners on Twitter for their questions about bats, and this is actually question I also have wondered about, and Kevin asks he says it's a dumb question, but Kevin, it's not. This is a question I also had before researching this, which

is why do they sleep upside down? I assume because cave floors are gross, but that's got to be wrong. I mean, first of all, cave floors under bats are kind of too, because they're full of guano, full of guano, and in fact, like sometimes if a baby bat falls down uh into the guano, like and they can't get up, it's they're going to get eaten by insects, which is awful um, but that's not actually why they sleep upside down.

So most bats actually, unlike birds, they can't take off from the ground because they birds can build up a momentum with their little legs. Bats their wings are tissue that uh connects from their hind legs to their fore legs, and so that prevents a lot of locomotion. So hanging upside down allows them to be in a ready position for taking off. By falling and opening their wings, they achieve the velocity they need to start flights, so they're

just basically ready to go. Cameron from Twitter asks when they're on the ground, they crawl on their belly and use their little hands on the end of their wings. So how do they take off and start flying? Do they stand on their little legs? I feel like they would just keep smacking the ground with their wings and not have any room. So this is a really good question. And it's true that bats don't normally take off from the ground, but there are a few species that can.

And it's really funny. So bats who have been known to take off from the ground evolved the ability to kind of scrabble on the ground like the New Zealand short tailed bats who walks on the ground in search of bugs. Uh, and vampire bats who sneak up on hosts by crawling on the ground. And they also need to like if a host kind of tries to get away from it, they need to be able to kind of like scary off, I know. And they really look

very awkward. It looks like a little they do look like vampires because it looks like a little cape right exactly. Looks like they keep getting tangled in their capes like ed no mode no capes. Um. So Brown University conducted a study in which they put bats on treadmills just to be mean, I guess, just to make fun of them. Um. Predictably, most bats don't do so well. Uh. New Zealand bats can comfortably walk, and vampire bats, actually, they found will

run on their arms. So there's a really interesting video. Let me show you and I'll post this video in the show notes. But here's a vampire bat running. Oh my god's so cool. So I'm just responding to everything with it is cool and you can see like it's front legs are really bearing most of the brunt of the motion. They kind of look like something from Boston Dynamics, you know, like how those those interesting robots have, like are able to walk really interestingly. Um, I wonder if

they're going to build like a bat bot. That would be cool. I would I would finally support the robot uprising if they built a batbot. Speaking of kind of interesting bats who have developed a kind of different way of locomotion. So Madagascar sucker footed bats look like they have a little section cups on their wrists and ankles. So here's a picture of them. Oh, doesn't he look He looks like is he on a leaf? Yeah, he's on a leaf. So they look like they would be

section cups, but they actually don't use section um. They use wet adhesion. So they secrete bodily fluids at the paths which stick to the smooth surface of the leaves um And so by using these like Spider Man powers to stick to leaves, they can avoid being eaten by parasites because the parasites can't walk on the leaves as well, because they'll just fall off. So it's like if Batman and Spiderman had a baby. I'm pretty sure if seemed tumbler out of that. Um. So now to the big

question of the day is do bats carry rabies? So Nicole from Twitter asks, I grew up hearing bats had a higher chance of carrying rabies, but no one ever explained why. So I'd like to know if that's true, and if so, why it's a problem for them. So that's do carry rabies. That's true, it's not a complete myth um, but the threat of rabies from bats is kind of overblown. So obviously disclaimer here, if you think you've gotten bitten by a bat, you should go to

a doctor because it's better safe than sorry. Rabies don't have uh, don't say it's okay they told us on Creatures. Don't write that in your last will and testament. Be like, I think I'll be fine because Katie Golden on Creature feature said I would be. Um. No, So rabies can be treated with a vaccine before you show symptoms, but once she starts showing symptoms, it's almost always fatal. Um

basically too late. So you're I mean, this is a general rule if you're ever bitten by a wild animal, especially about especially raccoon, especially an unknown dog, it's always a safer about to go to the doctor and get it checked out because raby shots aren't fun, but they work. And never pick up a bat you see on the ground,

just don't. I mean it's first of all, because bats who are on the ground and aren't afraid of you and we'll let you pick them up is actually more likely to be sick um, and you shouldn't handle them anyways. They don't want it. They don't want you to. You might want to give it a big old hug, but it doesn't want it, respect it's personal space. Um. So, according to the c d C, most bats don't have rabies. So this idea that all bats you encounter are just

infested with rabies is not true. Even of bats who were suspected of having rabies who seemed sick or weak or were easily captured when they tested them, only six percent of those tested positive. So a very small number of bats end up having rabies. Um. Typically, like I mentioned before, bouts who have rabies grow very sick quickly, and we'll start to have abnormal behaviors like crawling around your humans, crawling around on your lawn, uh, not trying

to escape when you approach them. So certainly never like if a bat seems whacked out of its mind, like probably not drunk, Well it could be, I suppose, but you don't want to handle it, you don't want to pick it up. Um. The reason that bats get such a bad reputation for rabies is that they're the main culprits of the very very few rabies cases that happen in the US every year. So there's really only like

a handful of rabies cases. We've done a pretty good job of basically wiping rabies out in in the US. Um there's like one to three cases reported annually. UM. And but of these bats are often the culprit. And it's not that bats are more likely to it's not that there's something about bats that make them more rabid or more likely to get rabies. It's that we've been treating the problem in dogs, which used to be the main carrier of rabies. So dogs, since they get rabies shot,

are no longer the main vector. And raccoons we've actually done a lot of pest control with raccoons that have also reduced the threat of rabies from them. And it's also a lot easier to notice, like if you're bitten by a raccoon, you're gonna know it, whereas when you're bitten by a tiny bat, like you might not notice

it as much. Um only bite and self defense. You. Well, if it's the vampire bat, I feel like, yeah, so if if a bat is scared, most bats aren't just gonna go up to you and bite you, even vampire bats, except for the hairy legged vampire bat and even that one. Um but uh yeah, most bats aren't looking to bite you. Rabies does kind of affect the brain in a weird way,

and it can make animals more aggressive and more defensive. Um. But certainly if you like squeeze a bat, or you hold a bat in your hand, you know it's going to get scared and it might BITEE squeeze a bat, don't It is attempting Because they look like a pet bat. I wouldn't recommend them as pets, but I'm sure some people have m somebody, um, bats surpassed raccoons as carriers just because we haven't really been you know, with raccoons, there's been more of a concerted effort of animal control

um and kind of trying to approach the rabies problem. Um. But in the US, you really don't need to fear bats and rabies, like just if you're normal everyday life, like, uh, they're not gonna they're not gonna try to bite you. Most bats aren't going to try to approach you at all. If they swoop at you, usually that's they're just looking for mosquitoes that are hovering around you. Um, so bats

aren't really they're really not that scary. In fact, in India and Asia, where rabies is far more prevalent and kills many more people a year, it's stray dogs who are the main culprits because most rays don't have the rabies vaccine um. And you know, we don't fear dogs. Another misconception about bats is that they're like flying vermin, like they're flying mice and rats, some kind of rodent.

They're not rodents at all. Their chiroptera, which is uh, there they have their own group of of species because they're there are tons of species of bats. Um. They didn't evolve from rodents. Um. They share a common ancestor with all placental mammals. UM some kind of like weird true like animal that basically humans, whales, everything came from um. Their evolutionary history is a little bit of a mystery history. Mystery um. Some biologists think they may be related to

the colugo, which are also known as flying lemurs. They aren't lemurs, they're just called that because you know, we don't know the difference. Colugos have these like skin flaps and they glide around and their insectivorous and their nocturnal. So the idea is like, even if they didn't necessarily evolve from colugos, they may have evolved from some kind of gliding um mammal that eats insects and is nocturnal.

And then those those those skin flaps just kind of developed more and more into wings because that gave them greater access to insects and wider distribution of food. Um. So this leads into the question whire abouts nocturnal? Uh? And why did they evolve flights? So one of the theories about bats being nocturnal is that they helped them

not compete with birds as much. Uh So, Yet again those uh the mythology about bats and birds competing like is just totally true, like a rom com their their rivals. But then they fall yeah, exactly, except for without the falling in love, it's right, or maybe I guess like a bat version of Twilight where the chicken is what's their name and then the bat is Edward, they fall in love with the ones they feed on. I guess so, well, isn't that the whole thing with Twilight? Like he eats

the whole thing with vampires in general? Right, they eat a lady, but then they look it's a little sexy and romantic, right, It's it's like it's like, huh, you look so delicious. I'm gonna make an incision on your ankle and lap up your blood. It's very intimate, very intimate. I wouldn't let just anyone do that. No, I know,

it's especially with the ankles. My goodness. Back when these when these vampire stories were written, basically, yeah, researchers wanted to examine this idea that they're nocturnal to avoid predation and to avoid competing with birds, and they found that the a bat who lives on sal Miguel Island um the Azorus noctual, actually does do more hunting during the day, and that island has very few insectivorous birds and very few predators, so that seems to be some evidence that

would confirm that idea, um, which I think is it's like, it's kind of interesting that really, because there are a lot of insects during the day, there's not necessarily an intrinsic advantage to hunting insects at night, except that you're you're carving your own little ecological niche where you're just like, this is my time to hunt. Is that where the

echolocation comes in. Yeah, I would guess that as they developed flight more echolocation probably became more important because if you're flying around, you're gonna gain velocity and slam into things if you can't see in the dark. Essentially, uh so, um, but yeah, it's it's interesting how it's it's actually kind of difficult to check on their evolutionary history because of how tiny and delicate their bones are, so it's hard to get fossil records. How do you get inside a

bat ear? How do you get smalllest place? Bats are one of the most diverse groups of mammals, with a huge variety of species. In fact, it's estimated that one fifth of all mammals or bats. Fortunately, bats are well pretty chill little dudes, far from being the solitary and brooding type like batman, they're more like the Brady Bunch. They're often highly social and friendly with one another, even roosting with other species with little conflict. They live in

colonies ranging from a handful of individuals to millions. We barely have a grasp on the enormity of these bat societies, as there are so many species of bats and such a diversity of group behavior, but here are some examples. Certain species will groom each other, feed each other, even build shelters together, as will soon discuss. In some species, colony members will share information about where to find food. Some species babysit each other's baby bats called pups baby bats.

Some bats will even communally nurse pups, sharing the role of wet nurse to help other mothers. Though there are some minor squabbles among bats, they're surprisingly easy going with a few conflicts, and generally they don't appear to have hierarchies or dominant structures. So maybe we could learn a thing or two about bats and start regurgitating food into

each other's mouths like a bunch of hippies. When we return, I'm going to answer more questions about bats and take you on a journey to visit some of the most incredible species of bats in the world. Let's go on a trip to imagination station. Close your eyes now, think of a bat. Don't think too hard, just let the first thing pop into your mind. You got it. When you think of a bat, what comes to mind? Is it a vampire bat, a fruit bat, a tiny bat,

a big bat. Well, it's going to depend on what images of bats you've been exposed to over your life. What you're looking at in your brain space is called a prototype In cognitive science, this means the image that your brain uses to match new visual information to your library of concepts. One of the theories is that prototypes are a sort of average over the experiences you've had with that particular thing. You have a prototype of cat

made up of an average of cats who've encountered. There are some studies that suggest this maybe the correct theory. Participants in one study were given a series of composite faces which were based on a prototype face, and which were designed to, on average, resemble that prototype face. The participants were then shown the prototype face and were asked if they'd seen that face before and they strongly believed they had. So why am I talking about prototype theory

and bats? Well, I want to shake up your prototype of what your brain assumes bats look like. Bats are one of the most diverse groups of mammals, with incredible physical variety, from tiny bats to huge bats, bats with faces that look like trumpets, to bats with faces that look like well, kind of testicles. Here's some really crazy bats. Like. Even when I was researching this, I didn't I knew that there was a huge variety of weird, weird looking bats.

I didn't understand there I was. There's so many. I was not prepared. But a book at Skylight Books that was just like a coffee table book of photographs of bats. Oh my god, it's just like every species of bat. Oh my god. I look at it all the time. Next time you're in, can you show Yeah, I'll bring it in. That's how this came about me because I was like, I shouldn't buy a book. It was like I have to own Oh my god, that isn't I'm going to steal that book. Oh you should go get it.

It's so good. What's it called. It's just called like bats bats? You want a bat's book? Uh? So Christian with no h asks on Twitter. What are the largest and smallest species? So, the largest bats are the flying foxes. Uh. These are mega bats. Uh. There's mega bats, which are the big bats, and the microbats, which are in little bats. So these are mega bats found in Southeast Asia. It's a fruit bat that eats fruit, nectar and flowers. U. It can't actually echolo hape, but it has very well

developed eyesight. Um. They weigh up to three and a half pounds with a wingspan of up to five ft uh and from head to butt it's about a foot long. UM. So to give you a sense of what this looks like, Molly, here's someone holding one of these guys. Uh. It is a big boy. It's a big boy, even though it doesn't really weigh that much. Just the wingspan. Uh. It's like the size of a kite essentially. Um. And they're

called flying foxes because they have cute little fox like faces. Uh. If they're not related to the fox and then not at all. No, not related to foxes, not related to rodents their character. The smallest bat in the world is the bumblebee bat or also known as kitties hog nos bat, and they're really cute. Also, they're one of the world's smallest mammals. Now, it's hard to say if they're objectively speaking the smallest mammal because like their wingspan is longer

than some animals. Uh, and they it's it just depends on how you define smallest. It's about an inch long and ways two grams. Um, that's not even enough. We need to get you high. The bumble bees worth they have about a six inch wingspan. Uh. They're about the size of a human thumb. They live in western Thailand and southeast Myan mar Uh. They're vulnerable to being endangered, as are actually a lot of these species abouts. Uh. They eat spiders and flies, and they have a little

pig like noses. And here's a picture of one of them on a human hand. It's perfect. It's the perfect animal. It's so small and tiny. Don't hold at but if you had to hold about you want to hold that. If you're a scientist, you can you get to hold this. Some lucky people are so tiny and small with one finger. I know, but you got to be very gentle. Don't write,

but don't but don't um. So gray long eared bats and big eared bats have giant rabbit like ears that they kind of look like because they have these little veins. They kind of look like you just stuck two big leaves on a on a little creature. Um. And then uh, there's a boat that has tiny ears but a huge face. So the hammer headed bat is found in Africa in swamps and forests. Their fruit bats and they're the males have huge heads shaped like a hammer. So here's one

of these guys. So cool. Looks like a raw wilder. Yeah, like one of those what are those called? Um, the dogs that have the snouts flat face. It looks like spuds mackenzie, Buds Mackenzie. That's that's what. That's spuds mackenzie. But it's a bat. It's a it's a bull terrier, right, is that what Spuds Mackenzie has? I think so that sounds right for a flatty face. Yeah, it's a bull terrier. It looks like a bull terrier and a bat. Yeah. Um.

And actually, so females don't have that big big snaws. Um, males use their huge heads to make loud honks to attract females. Oh yeah, that's spuds, I'm looking at it, Spuds Mackenzie. It spuds the bat. So I'm gonna play a clip for you of bat's making the noise. It sounds like it sounds like a space battle. It sounds so cool. It sounds like it sounds like Star Trek space battles. To me, I would like to listen to that for just hours. Just bat a smr now onto

A really cute that. One of my favorite bats is the Honduran white bat, which are just a little marshmallows with wings. Uh. This is the bat that would if you were gonna imagine what an Arctic bat might look like, exactly this little dude exactly. So they're little white bats. They look like cotton balls. They have yellow ears and noses due to carotenoids like what's found in flamingos, carrots, leaves and uh oranges. Uh and you and I and you and I, yeah, to a certain extent, but we don't. Uh,

we don't. The density of carotenoids and bats is really interesting. And how like densely they like collected around their nose and ears, which is usually not seen in mammals. So it's really interesting. Um, it's kind of like how so like flamingos, they get the carotenoids from their diet and they their wings become very pink and colorful and so but that kind of thing unless I mean, we can turn orange if we eat this insane amounts of carrots um.

But the bats do it with very little effort. It eats fruit, mainly figs, And they make tints out of leaves. So they actually build tints by cutting through the eyes of the leaf and folding it over like it's so cool. And they live in it's a team effort to so they each tent contains like from one to about a dozen bats, and they'll all work on the tent together. Yeah. They're also communal. That's what I love about them. They're friendly. Yeah,

and they all snuggle for the snuggle warmth. Just imagine a bunch of little marshmallows with with yellow ears and a nose and wings, just all snuggling together in a leaf. It's like something from Miyazaki my neighbor Totoro. Yeah, they're cute, they're useful, they help each other. They don't have a hierarchy, Like it doesn't get better than that. Yeah, they're really like kind of got a utopian society to live in caves. I think I just want all these things. I kind

of want to be a bat. So these tents protect them from weather and predators. But imagine you didn't need to build a tent it that you could make a tint out of your own body. So here's a fun imagination station. Imagine you had a sleep mask built into your neck flaps, like your neck skin, that you could just pull up and sleep on planes. It's kind of

scary to imagine that, but I'm doing it. Yeah, I mean it's kind of like it's what I imagine, like Mitch McConnell, does you know, like just kind of turns into his neck. Um. Yeah. It would be cool if there was more, if we had more extremity and human faces. And I'd like more flaps, honestly, like more flaps too, because I hate flying on planes and the lights. Someone opens the window, which you shouldn't do. I've seen clouds. I don't care about clouds. You're to sleep. I'm there

to sleep. I'm there to to try to force myself to sleep and not think about how there are clouds all around us and not see the beautiful vistas. That's not important to me. But your skin flaps that's what my skin flaps for. And it'd be such a strong social signal to like someone's talking your ear off and you just slowly start to like pull your skin flap

up up. I also really empathize with um. Well, first, let me say that there are there is a bat that can do this, and they're called wrinkle faced bats. And personally, I can't actually sleep unless I pull like my shirt up over my chin. I have no idea why. It's almost like I'm afraid someone's gonna like come in the middle of the night and stab me in the next I've got to like protect my neck with my the blanket. Really yeah, I like to be tucked in.

I like to be like covered by a leaf, you know. Yeah, Like, yeah, that's just that security of like I am covering up my face with it's really hot that I can't do anything, which happened. I have to do it or I can't sleep. It's very bizarre. Maybe like part bat. Maybe I was bitten by radioactive bat and this is the crappy superpower that I got. I was gonna say, we're both really pale red hats. There's a reason we think bats are cool because it can only come out at night, because

we only come out at night exactly. Um So, wrinkle face beats are found in Central America. As their name suggests, they have a very wrinkly face. Here's a picture. They look like one of those kind of mohawk look a little bit like Look, I don't want to get naughty on the show, but they look a little bit like a ball sack. Yeah, I mean they kind of also look like a waffle, a waffle, right as skin waffle, flesh waffle. Um. So, males have a flap of skin they can pull down and use as a face mask

while they're sleeping. Um. And they also have mouth pouches to store fruit in um, which is just I love seeing imagining this little wrinkly face just distended over like a grape, like a like a hamster. Where are those ones the mouth patches, they're like right on his little cheeks, like right there. I don't know. I meant, where the where do those bats? Uh? Where do those bats come from? Oh?

They're in Central America. I wonder why that didn't become more of a thing with all the other bats having like a skin flap. Yeah, it's a good question. Just their faces seem like such a great here's bio diversity, let's try everything. It's like, you know that like Dr. Seuss thing, this the need thing, like in the Lorex where it's like a it's a basically a piece of fabric that can be turned into many different articles of clothing and like a purse or a shirt or sweater. Um, like,

that's how I feel like these bat faces are. It's like it can be an eyemask, can be like a storage thing. It can just look really beautiful. They're like plants. Yeah, they do looktle bit like an orchid, don't they They really do, especially some of the nose spikes like a fleshy, fleshy orchid. Yeah. In fact, a lot of bats are called a leaf nose bats because their nose look like little leaves. They are. They're really beautiful to me. They

look like flowers. Um, there's those urns take goal drawings of bat Yes, I have always left. Yes, I'll probably put that online. The diversity of bad faces. Yeah there, it's it's really incredible. Um. And speaking of awesome looking bats, here's a bat with a mohawk. Oh yeah, this is called a Chapman's bat. It's found in Central and South America. They're insectivores. It's a little bat with a big hair do.

Um looks like Wendy Oh Williams. I don't know. She's a she likes to She's like a cool punk lady who blows stuff up and hammers and mohawk. Yeah. Uh, it does look very punk rock. It's got it's it's literally like it's the closest thing I've seen to like a punk rock mohawk in a mammal. Really yeah, Um, it absolutely looks like a punk mohawk. Um. It's probably for sexual selection, since they're more prominent in males. It's probably soft, less spiky than I realized. Stop making me

want to pet. That's all I can do is talk about I just want to pet a bat and not get babies. Yeah. Um, so Christian with an h asks? Um do bats pea or crap on themselves when sleeping? How do they keep babies safe while upside down? Do they have protection against pork air quality and caves? So this is a good question. Um, when bats are roosting, they don't poop and pee on themselves. They actually will flip over to go to the bathroom. Um, and so

you have. I mean they'll when they're flying, they'll poo and pee just in the air, just like birds do. But um, like when they're in their caves, they don't want to they don't poop on themselves. That's the cave floor, that's for the floor. So they'll they'll do a little somersaults so they can poop. They do give birth to babies upside down though, and the mother has to kind of catch the baby on the way right. And then they drop them sometimes and they aren't allowed to get them. Yeah,

I mean if they draw a sad documentary where that happened. Yeah, if they dropped them, I think it's just like really difficult to retrieve them. Um and so and like they do get like a baby that gets dropped is not gonna make it generally. Um so high stakes high stakes game of catch here circus performers. It's like if we shot a baby out like when giving birth and the doctor just had to catch it or like we had to catch back to the ball game. Um, the baby

will quickly start to learn to cling to its mother's belly. Uh. And in some species, the mother can fly with a baby clinging to her stomach. Like instill a luna, remember that book, and then like they get attacked by a hawk or something and still a little for it. You get lost from her mom, but then she's not abandoned, but then she gets raised by birds and they're like, why are you so strange? And it turns out she wasn't strange, She was a bat all along, all along.

Uh So. The other part of the question is about um poor air quality in caves, and actually this is a little bit of a misconception. Generally speaking, air qualitying caves is fine. There are some exceptions, obviously, um, but natural caves typically have a good amount of oxygen and air mixing uh and they rarely have dangerous gases, although there are some caves that do, like have high concentrations

of c O two. So don't just like go don't pick up a bat, squeeze it and go marching into a cave and be like Katie told me to, don't go in a cave where bats are and up a bat right, and like shove your face and all their guana and such um and the the things you really have to look out for our minds and minds are more dangerous because they don't have Unlike a natural cave, they don't have as much air circulation. There's usually like one way in and one way out, so that's how

dangerous gases can often build up in mines um. Bat caves do offer a little extra gassiness because bat guano does give off ammonia gas um. I'm not exactly sure how bats cope with the strong ammonia. My guess is that air circulation in the caves, the humidity, or their distance from the guano is probably enough to keep it from bothering them. But if there's any bat biologists or caveologists spollnchologists out there, uh, sim me a message, tell

me how wrong I am. Here's another question about bats. Doc Garb asks, would you rather fight one batman size bat or twenty bats sized batmans? Yes? Um, So obviously that depends on the species of bats, Like if the batman's were the size of the bumblebee bat, definitely twenty bat sized batman's um. And honestly, though the real answer to this question is, uh, fighting a batman size bat because the bat isn't gonna want to fight me. Yeah, if I see a big bat, we're gonna be friends. Friends,

we're gonna be friends. I'll be like, hey, can I groom you can? You can throw up in each other's mouths. Would you like to throw up in my mouth? I'll throw up in your mouth if you throw up in the back and forth exactly. Um uh. And similar to this, Waffles asks if Batman was bitten by radioactive bat, what powers would he likely have? Uh? Not including cancer um, which I guess is a concern with radioactivity. Um so uh, if he was bitten, it again depends on the species

of bats. So if he was bitten by a vampire bat, he'd be able to use his nose as a heat detection system, so he could like maybe put his nose on a wall. I'm imagining like uldtrap powers. Like this is not something an actual vampire bat can do, but maybe a radioactive vampire bat could do. Like maybe he could like put his nose against a wall and like use that as heat sensors to see where all the

criminals are. His bite would also contain an anticoaculant, so you know, he'd just like bite the joker and he'd bleed out. I guess he could also, as we've talked about, vomit up blood to feed Robin, to keep him nourished. He's a grown boy. He's a grown boy, wonder and he needs to make Batman like a little cooler. It makes him so much better. And he he doesn't believe in hierarchies, right, so he wouldn't be first of all,

he'd be a batman. He wouldn't be Batman. He would just be like, hey, I'm man bat I'm going to give all my wealth away. Um, I'm gonna bite people who are bad and vomit blood up into children's mouths and echo and echolocate. A true hero um. He'd also have exquisite hearing. He could probably hear flies having sex, probably hear everyone having sex, which sounds like a horrible nightmare. Bat's actually will listen for um flies as they're having sex.

They make like sexual buzzing as flies have sex. And then if a bat hears that, they know how to target them and eat them, and they'll just eat both of them. Yes, so kind of kind of like both a messiah and a horror movie villain who would just eat people who have sex. And if he was bitten by the sucker footed bat, he would be able to scale buildings like Spider Man. So you know, as long as he's on our side, he'd be great. But if just like we'd have to be a chaste, equitable society.

Matt asks, is there a way to attract bats to come live in the bat houses we've put up? And a related question from Lady friend is bat addicts. I should get some, right, So this is kind of what we were talking about before. Um, I don't know if you want bats in your attic, especially because they won't they won't destroy the attic at all. They don't choose through things, but they'll they'll poop a lot, And I don't know if you want poop there. Um like guana

like used to make dynamite? Also, is it? I didn't know that there's something it's used for, something that makes it really valuable. I believe it involves explosive. Oh yes, it's because dried back wando consists largely of saltpeter, potassium nitrate explosive poop. The Confederates used it after their supplies were cut off. Oh my gosh, the Civil War. I wonder what would happen if you gave like a bat chipotle? Would that just be like an H bomb? Of that's

pretty incredible. Maybe you don't want bats in your attic. I don't think it'll probably not unless you probably might lead to some confederates, which the FBI, raiding your house. Like, what's with all this explosions. It's explosive material. Um. But bat houses are a great idea. Um So, uh, if you want bats to take up residents in a bat house, it's a location, location, location, according to back Conservation International,

So lures don't really work to attract them to the house. Obviously, you shouldn't like try to force a bat into a else. You shouldn't pick up a bat and like place it in a house. Don't pick up bats. They're adorable. I

know you want to, Just don't touch them. Don't touch them. Instead, they recommend making the house appealing by placing it against a wall or solid wood structure rather than a pull to regulate the temperature, as the bats will prefer warmer houses, but not too hot, so around eighty two a hundred degrees fahrenheit in the summer. Um. By choosing where the home is in the sun or shade, and what color

you paint it, you can control the temperature. And I'll put up a link to the Uh, there's a bad conservation um worksheet about like how to how to make a cool bath house decoy decoy asks. I've always heard baths de flat show and kind of lingus to each other a lot. Is there any truth to that? Yes there is, so we your point for bath not their point for bats. So I talked about this on the Worst at Sex Awards episode, But biologists found that female

Chinese fruit baths indeed perform fully show during mating copulations. Uh. It's thought that this is used to help encourage the males to keep going so successful insemination occurs. It's kind of like a little bit of an auDA boy, like you're doing a good job, keep on going. It's got to be they're probably doing it like really having to crunch those abdominal muscles. You gotta put those wings out of the way. And I bet you're thinking, well, that's great.

But do male bats perform kind of lingus um? And in fact they do so. Researchers have found that male Indian flying foxes will perform oral sex on females, which I think is great. I mean, we can learn so much from baths. They're basically the best animal. I like to be a bat, right, Yeah, I mean they have they have equitable societies, they have welfare, they practice uh sex on each other, and they're cute and exactly. Yeah. Uh.

And here's another point in the favor of bats. If you take a video of bats hanging upside down, flip it and put some music to it, they look like they're dancing. So I'll post this. I'll post this video. So cute they definitely they look it's a little trio of bats, and they look like they're dancing because they're just kind of like, I guess breathing. Uh and uh.

I can't play the video on podcast. I'm pretty sure it's got but if you can imagine the cutest, funniest thing you've ever seen, right, look at the leg where like look at the lego here like looks like he's tap dancing. Oh it's so cool. It's hilarious. So you got any got any more stories about bats? Well? I haven't had that much experience with them personally, so I've only really seen them in other places. But now I want to find the ones in l A. Yeah, see if we can track them down. I did see when

I was in Las Vegas a couple of years ago. Um, the bats congregate around the lux or pyramid really because there's so many because it's a big light. Yeah, and they shoot a big light out of the top of the pyramid own bugs, right. Yeah, So there's so many bugs that it's like a great place for bats to the desert. Bats hang out there and you can see like a cool big spotlight for the It's the best show in town. That's awesome. I'm actually going to Vegas

and all, oh, we'll check it out. I'm gonna check out the bats. Probably not going to gamble at all, going to spend all my time looking about I can. I would also love to recommend the Atomic Bomb Testing Museum in Las Vegas is really cool. Really Yeah, it's like a Smithsonian museum about all the atomic bomb stuff and it's really scary and the Bombaguana No, but it's funny because it's like it all happens out in the desert.

So you know, I'm sure it was in some places where bats are leaving the guano around something, they're like, oh, just another explosion, just another way one of those dead theert bats that can crawl on the ground just like oh, geez back to the pyramid. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. So you're you're part of a podcast called Nightcall. I've had tests on that. I get Emily for the tri I know. Uh so, can

you talk a little bit about your podcast? Nightcall is a podcast about sort of the occult and as Terrika, you talk about UFOs and ghosts and stuff like that a lot, but we also talk about animals, which is why this is a great pod to cross over on because we also talk about uh, leeches specifically recently um and sometimes bath. So you have to come on Night Call next. I'd love to be on Nightcall. I will

talk to you about all sorts of creepy animals. Having an animal expert on a call is like something I've always dreamed of in my life, just having someone who I can ask the kind of questions that people would ask you, right, like is Bigfoot made out of eels? And the answer, I don't know, the science of nobody knows yet. Can people find you on social media? Yeah? You can find me on Twitter at Molly Lambert and other places. Yeah. Yeah, you can find us on the internet.

Uh Creature feature pod dot Com Creature feature pod on Instagram, Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. F e a T not f ET That'll bring you somewhere very different. Uh. You can find me at Katie Golden. I'm also at pro bird Rights uh, and I urge you to ignore all of the propaganda in this episode about being pro bat rights because in fact, birds are the superior creature. Oh I disagree. Somebody help me on being controlled by birds anyways.

Thank you so much for joining us. If you're enjoying the pod, please leave our review, subscribe, press all the numerous buttons available to you below the episode, and send Katie pictures of your bath houses. That would be wonderful Send me pictures of bath houses. Dick Dix Chevertine's anything really and thanks to the Space Classics for They're Awesome song. Exo Lumina creature features of production of I Heart Radios

How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or where if you listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday.