This blog is about what its like to be a bat researcher with a little bit about the things I love sprinkled throughout: bats (of course/understood), biology, music as well as the less expected.
Another Ted talk this one on what the genome of bats can tell us about bat evolution.
Below the talk can also be accessed by clicking this (Link)
From the Ted website:
"In Western society, bats are often characterized as creepy, even evil. Zoologist Emma Teeling encourages us to rethink our attitude toward bats, whose unique and fascinating biology gives us insight into our own genetic makeup. (Filmed at TEDxDublin.)"
An intersting podcast/article on human echolocation and 'What is it like to be a bat' was published in Nature News recently (here).
"
What is it like to be a bat?
Bat
ecologists have made it their life’s work to find out, philosophers
argue we may never understand, and one blind woman knows better than
anyone. In the first episode of Audiofile, Nature’s new
sound science series, find out how much we can really know about what
it’s like to be a bat, and what it tell us about the limits of human
perception.
This is the first podcast from the new Audiofile - and is quite nice. I except if you check back there will soon be more podcasts relating to sound (here).
A new study on Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasilensis) published this month reveals that bats are not always kind to each other when it comes to foraging behaviors. These bats that use echolocation to forage for food are deploying strategies to prevent other individuals from successfully finding food. How these bats are doing this has been compared to the jamming technology of a military aircraft.
Not always nice - individual Mexican free-tailed bat may impede others of the same species from being able to find food using echolocation by 'jamming' their echolocation calls.
The interference that these bats create is called jamming and researchers Aaron Corocoran and William Conner from Wake Forest University have found that individuals will jam the call of others during competition for their nightly hunt for food (namely insects).
I am excited (dare I say thrilled) to report that a paper I was involved with got blogged about!
*Forgive the self-enthusiasm. This is a first for me!*
This paper examines lactation in 129 species and was published this year (2013) in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
The paper is titled: "The evolution of the nutrient composition of mammalian milks"
Authors: Amy L. Skibiel, Lauren M. Downing, Teri J. Orr and Wendy R. Hood
Article Summary: "1. In mammals, nutrient allocation during lactation is a critical component of maternal care as milk intake promotes juvenile growth and survival, and hence maternal and offspring fitness. 2. Milk composition varies widely across mammals and is hypothesized to have arisen via selection pressures associated with environment, diet and life history. These hypotheses have been proposed based on observations and/or cross-species comparisons that did not standardize for stage of lactation and did not consider evolutionary history of the species in analyses. 3. We conducted the largest comparative analysis of milk composition to date accounting for phylogenetic relationships among species in order to understand the selective advantage of producing milk with specific nutritional profiles. We examined four milk constituents in association with species ecology while incorporating phylogeny in analyses. 4. Phylogenetic signal was apparent for all milk constituents examined. After controlling for phylogeny, diet and relative lactation length explained the greatest amount of variation in milk composition. Several aspects of species’ ecologies, including adaptation to arid environments, reproductive output and maternal body mass were not associated with milk composition after accounting for phylogeny. 5. Our results suggest that milk composition is largely a function of evolutionary history, maternal nutrient intake and duration of milk production. Arriving at these conclusions was made possible by including the evolutionary relationships among species."
Read the blog entry by Katie Hinde here at:
http://mammalssuck.blogspot.com/2013/11/mega-mammal-milk-analysis.html
This paper was part of Amy Skibiel's dissertation work under the direction of Wendy Hood. I've written about these two lovely ladies before as they were instrumental for helping me get my bat milk work up and running during my dissertation!
Little did I know that words all us crazy bat biologists use might be found online... explained!
All you Batologists out there let me know... any other words
you think folks should know? Any changes you see needed here? Who is
your favorite Batologist?
Several years later, after reading three of his books on bats, I placed a call to the venerable chiropterologist Dr. M. Brock Fenton, known as the "batman" of York University in Toronto.
*Comment from this blogger- I know Dr. Fenton and he is ABSOLUTELY wonderful and is most certainly a good example of a chiropterologist!*
Quotations
For more examples of usage of this term, see the citations page.
The brambles were backward this season, and I could do little with
them ; but I am sure that this part of Ireland is a good hunting-ground
for the batologist.
Hello from Trinidad where the bats are flying and the rain (today) is falling! Here are a few photos to enjoy including my first observation of a bat-lizard interaction!
Ok so the bat and lizard are NOT actually 'interacting' but rather the bat is flying past the lizard. The bat and lizard were living in the same roost.
I am back home from a recent trip to Trinidad where the bats were abundant and from what I could see roosting in almost any and every abandoned house/garage/store on the island. That may be a bit of an exaggeration but there are certainly many amazing bats in Trinidad. Trinidad itself is beautiful, while the people are fun, kind and diverse. The island country just off the coast of Venezuela is home to amazing animals, plants as well as food! Just a word or two about the bats follow but I would suggest you read more about this interesting country if you find time.
Together with researchers from several different institutions we captured many species of bats but here are some of the more photogenic:
The greater spear-nosed bat (Phylostomus hastatus)
This very large bat makes very interesting vocalizations, roosts in groups and is known by bat biologists to have a forceful bite. That said these are fairly sweet bats and amazingly beautiful. Phylostomus eats fruits.
The ghost-faced bat (Mormoops megalophylla)
This is the 'oh my gosh what happened to it's face!' bat. Mormoops is an insect eater and comes in beautiful shades of orange- in case you can peel your eyes away from its strange face long enough to appreciate its fur color. Why the weird face? well that's a story for another time but may have something to do with it's use of echolocation to find insect prey.
The short-tailed fruit bat (Carollia perspicillata)
This tough looking little nose-leafed bat is the main bat studied on the island and lives in a variety of habitats. These little fruit-eating bats are quite small but are also famously good mothers and will take great care of a baby despite possible risks to the mother.
The Disk-winged bat (Thyroptera tricolor)
Another insect-eater, these tiny little bats roost head-up (which is unusual for bats who usually hang upside down) inside of leaves as they unroll. Read more about how other sucker footed bats don't suck here.
I hope to post more about T&T in the future but meanwhile I refer you to Trinibats.com which has amazing photos and information about a suite of other bats.
Bats and Sesame Street! Just another case of bats being depicted in a fun way - although perhaps still rather cliche/mythical manner considering they are chilling with Count Dracula! At least here they are quite cute so maybe kids who saw this would LIKE the bats in the clip.
Romanian flag
Interestingly enough Count Dracula makes me think of Romania (Transylvania is where the original 'Count' was supposed to be from) and a quick search revealed that indeed Romania has its own Romanian Bat Protection Association (here)!
Furthermore, they COUNT bats! (Sorry I couldn't resist- but really... look there they are counting bats!)
Oddly there are no vampire bats in Europe so where the mythical connection between bats and vampires came from in this region remains something of a mystery to me but I am sure someone somewhere has a hypothesis regarding where this mythical relationship originated. Of further interest is what made Sesame Street producers decide that they needed a 'count to count' is interesting and clever. I am not sure how many kids loved him growing up but I would like to be counted in that number!
Transylvanian coat of arms (Transylvania is a historical region of Romania).
This video is too amazing (i.e. hilarious) to not share. The video was made by this guy. It is fairly accurate and includes top-notch humor. Enjoy! (P.s. I think 'Eric' is an Artibeus jamaicensis... meaning he is even more awesome than depicted just here!)
Over the next few days I will be finalizing my preparations to head off for a quick (5 day) trip to the field. Specifically, I will be going to the bat species-rich country of Belize with a group of other bat biologists for a collaborative batting effort! I hope to sample a few bats others are working with as well as get some great photos of less common species. I'll admit that I am excited to catch my old friend from my dissertation: the Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicensis). Strange how a species you work with extensively can become like a dear-friend you miss when you don't see it for awhile and that you look forward to catching up with.
My mad dash to pick up essentials included:
Bug spray (DEET included unfortunately a must for the mosquito-prone in the tropics),
batteries for headlamps (*a important item for hours of bat work- I also have 3 headlamps packed 'just in case'),
black velvet for photography of tissues/bats etc.,
duct tape (just case you don't recall why see this post).
I also had to grab a suite of lab supplies as well. Of course these you cannot just pick up at Target! A favorite that will surely last the duration of my Postdoc tenure? Parafilm! Parafilm is a fun tape-like wax that you can use to seal tubes and other containers and is extremely useful and fun to use! Really I would suggest that Parafilm is the scientific version of duct tape. It is incredibly useful.
I leave Monday and look forward to sharing information about the bats we catch! With any luck I will have many an update during my trip (we should have internet access making this possible)! Meanwhile tomorrow will consist of packing the rest of my lab supplies: calipers, pesolas (a spring-based scale used to weigh bats), leather gloves (for handling bats) among other things.
Meanwhile- as I sit and write this- a song (Tropical Iceland by the Fiery Furnaces to be exact) came to mind. Really this song is a little silly but I've always loved how catchy it is and well as you might suspect leaving the North East for the tropics made it come to mind again. Give it a listen! If nothing else the cartoons are both strange and cute. Yes and 'strange and cute' makes me think of some of the bats I hope to catch (see? full circle)! Now feel free to weigh in on the image below is it strange and cute or just strange?
'Don't hate me because I am beautiful!l' an image of Centurio senex the Wrinkle-Faced bat (image by Laval from the American Society of Mammalogistsimage library).
Out of curiosity I wanted to see what google suggested is one of the main questions regarding bats and apparently it is 'do bats have eyes?' The answer to this question is yes. In fact many bats have big beautiful eyes. In some cases bats do not rely on their sight very much and instead echolocate, other bats use their noses to find fruits but some use their eyes extensively. Here you can see some beautiful examples of bat eyes! Also- should you like musical inspiration while perusing please enjoy a cover of 'Call me Al'' by Noah and the Whale- a song with its reference to a 'rolly polly little bat faced girl' that just comes to mind when I consider bat faces!
Over the next few days I will be finalizing my preparations to head off for a quick (5 day) trip to the field. Specifically, I will be going to the bat species-rich country of Belize with a group of other bat biologists for a collaborative batting effort! I hope to sample a few bats others are working with as well as get some great photos of less common species. I'll admit that I am excited to catch my old friend from my dissertation: the Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicensis). Strange how a species you work with extensively can become like a dear-friend you miss when you don't see it for awhile and that you look forward to catching up with.
I also had to grab a suite of lab supplies as well. Of course these you cannot just pick up at Target! A favorite that will surely last the duration of my Postdoc tenure? Parafilm! Parafilm is a fun tape-like wax that you can use to seal tubes and other containers and is extremely useful and fun to use! Really I would suggest that Parafilm is the scientific version of duct tape. It is incredibly useful.
