1) I LOVE bats! They're a vital part of our eco-system.
2) Cami was one of the teens in my very first Humane Teen Club. She just graduated from Northern Arizona University with a degree in Wildlife Ecology and Management. (Where did the time go?!)
On to expanding our knowledge about these very important critters!
1) When you
hear the word BAT, most people think one of three things: Halloween, vampires,
or rabies. What do you think?
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When
I hear bat I think firstly, cute fuzzy small animal that is amazing
evolutionarily and morphologically as the only mammal that has developed true
flight. Next I think about them eating (hopefully all) mosquitos. And finally,
and probably most importantly, I think about the pillar they are in the
ecosystem as insect controllers, being of only a select few animals that are
nocturnal insectivores. They impact agricultural lands, forested lands, coastal
regions, and even urbanized areas in ways that most people don’t know due to
the stigma attached to them of being vampires or rabid. But in actuality the
majority of bats eat insects, nectar, or fruit. Only three species are actually
considered “vampire” bats, all of which occur in Central and South America.
They impact such diverse habitats because insects are everywhere and without
them a lot of the food we enjoy that are grown in crops would be difficult to
produce. These can include wheat fields (the Symbol of Bacardi rum is a bat
because bats helped increase the productivity of his crops which lead to a
higher production of alcohol for the landowner), fruits, and vegetable crops. This
can be both at a large scale ranch or agricultural development and at a small
scale community or home garden.
2) How long
have you been studying/working with bats?
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It
has been almost two years exactly since I held my first bat. The first year I
focused on what kind of roosts they were selecting in a country club in
Flagstaff. The second year I focused in on the genetics of that population.
3) What are
some of the misconceptions you had that were smashed once you got to know bats?
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Honestly,
going in to this job I had no idea what to expect. I definitely did not think
that bats were as cute as I do now having worked closely with them. I also had
the misconception that they all looked somewhat similar, but that was smashed
on my first few times of handling them. Each species has their own little
quirks.
4) Tell us a
few FUN facts about these guys!
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So
the Bacardi fact up above is pretty neat! I promote Bacardi now because of that
story. Another neat thing is that each genera and sometimes species has a different
demeanor; once in a while you may come across individuals that have distinctly
different personalities. There are a few species we all love to handle since
they are calm and don’t fight and bite so much, these include the Arizona myotis
(Myotis occultus; Arizona’s version
of the little brown bat; they are very closely related), Mexican free tailed
bat (Tadarida brasiliensis), and the
big free tail bat (Nyctinomops macrotis).
Others that can be difficult to handle are the hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus), the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), and the pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus).
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Another
neat thing is that certain species like the big brown bat, have females who
roost in large maternity colonies (can be a few hundred) and communally raise
their young. Most bats are only able to have a single pup per breeding season,
so having other females who will, sometimes, altruistically help raise another
females pup. The fascinating thing about this is that based on biology and the
“furthering your own genes” idea, these females should be or were thought to be
selecting their roosts and females to help based on kinship (so the female you
are helping is your sister, aunt, niece, etc). But with the genetic study we
did of these roosts we found that there was no significant genetic structure or
relatedness, which suggests that they are not roosting with females that they
are related to. This makes what they are doing an altruistic behavior by just
helping to help.
5) Why are
bats such an important part of our environment?
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Many
species are insect controllers. They eat everything from beetles to moths to
mosquitos to scorpions (the pallid bat (Antrozous
pallidus) does this), so they control these populations and further crop
success. Other bats a nectivorous, so
like hummingbird they have exceptionally long tongues that they use to feed on
nectar from plant to plant. So like hummingbirds and bees they act as
pollinators.
6) What is
the biggest threat to bats right now?
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The
main two are fairly obvious I feel. 1) White-nose syndrome and 2) Urbanization
which leads to habitat fragmentation.
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With
white-nose syndrome it’s a difficult issue to find a “fix” or solution to. This
is mostly due to the fact that it’s a fungus that does best in wet cold
climates; thus why caves are so heavily impacted.
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Urbanization
is the same battle with every species where fragmentation of habitat and
overall habitat loss or conversion creates an ecosystem that is impossible for
some animals. For bats, certain species are what we call generalists where they
will do fairly well in just about any environment from urbanized to forested.
Others, however, have a different story where they are specialists and utilize
a specific habitat or niche and without that they can have population declines.
7) Do they
only come out at night? Or is it more a dusk to dawn in the waning lights life?
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Most
bats are indeed nocturnal and forage at night time. They will usually use day
roosts during daytime to sleep and rest before they come out at dusk. They will
exit their roosts and then fly around a forage for a while and then use night
roosts as places to take a quick power nap before continuing to forage. Of
course this is not applicable to every species but in general that is their
pattern.
8) Anything
else you think we should know or keep in mind about these amazing creatures?
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Remember
that if you like wheat, fruit, and/or vegetables, then you like bats!
Thank you for your time and for sharing the wonder of bats with us, Cami!
What about you, readers? Did you learn something new about bats? Do you like them, love them, or are you scared of them?
