Bats: What are they?

Summary: To this day, bats have been one of the most misunderstood animals. Join Kiersten as she reveals what bats are and begins a new series about these amazing creatures.

 

For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

 

Show Notes:

“Bats in Question: A Smithsonian Answer Book,” by Don E. Wilson

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

 

Transcript

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Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

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Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal.

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

This series is near and dear to my heart. We will be delving into the world of bats. To this day, this species of animal remains one of the most misunderstood in the animal kingdom. Despite all of the PR efforts of researchers, naturalists, and photographers, humans still cannot look past some of the myths about bats. But we will start off with the firstling I like about bats, what they are.

As I mention in the opening of each series, I earned my Master’s of Science studying the breeding behavior of the tri-colored bat. This is a small species of insectivorous bat native to eastern North America. I studied them in the state of Georgia. I was already enamored of bats before I undertook this research, but working up close with these tiny creatures solidified my love of them and expanded my respect for them as a species, so this series of Ten Things I Like About….is all about the misunderstood bat.

Let’s start at the beginning. What is a bat? Loyal listeners, you know where this is going. We are going to start off with some taxonomy. 

Bats are classified under Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Cordata, Subphylum Vertebrata, Class Mammalia, Order Chiroptera, Suborder Megachiroptera, Family Pteropodidae, Suborder Microchiroptera, and under Microchiroptera there are many more families. 

What does all this classification tell? Kingdom Animalia means bats are animals as opposed to plants or invertebrates. Phylum Chordata puts them in a group of living beings with a central flexible rod supporting their dorsal side or back. Subphylum Vertebrata means they have an internal skeleton that supports their body. Class Mammalia puts them in the same class as us. Bats are mammals which means they have hair on their bodies, they give live birth, and they nurse their young with milk. Order Chiroptera is the order specific to all bats and Chiroptera is Latin for hand-wing. There are two suborders for bats, Suborder Megachiroptera is the group of larger bats (mega kind of gives that away) and Family Pteropodidae refers to the Old World bats that are found in Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. Family Pteropodidae contains around 45 genera and approximately 200 species of fruit-eating bats.

The second Suborder of bats is Microchiroptera which includes the smaller bats (hence micro) and the over 900 species of bats classified as Microchiroptera that are found all over the world. 

Now we know that bats are mammals, let’s take a look at Chiroptera. Why was this word used in association with bats? If you break it down, chiro means hand and pteron means wing, giving us hand-wing. Those of you that are not driving while listening to this episode, take a moment and search for bat anatomy on the internet or in book, yes books still exist. Take a good look. Does the pattern seem familiar? Take a look at your own hand. Do you see it? That’s correct. Bats have the same bones in their wing that we have in our hand, leading us back to Chiroptera or ‘hand-wing’. This is actually one of my favorite classifications in Class Mammalia. It makes a great talking point and links bats directly to humans which goes a long way to dispelling some of the fear people have of bats.

A future episode will be dedicated to discussing and debunking the myths and fears surrounding bats, but I will say that 99% of those fears are misconceptions.

Including the one that says bats are flying rats. Bats are not rats with wings and the classification proves that. Bats and rats are included in the same Class Mammalia but they diverge, which means they separate, at Order. Rats are classified in Order Rodentia. All rodents are in a separate order from bats and as scientific processes for collecting data have advanced over the years, each test, including DNA, reenforces the fact that bats and rats are not related outside of them both being vertebrate mammals.

Bats range in size from the thumb-size Bumblebee Bat to the six-foot wings span Malaysian Flying Fox, but they all have one thing in common. You all know what that is, wings.

Every species of bat, that we currently know about, has wings. A thin membrane of skin called a patagium stretches between the bones of the wing creating a surface area that allows bats to fly. Bat are the only mammals with true flight. But what about flying squirrels, right? Flying squirrels also have a patagium that stretches from the wrist to the ankle, but they are only able to glide. They leap from a height, snap open the patagium, and glide down.

Bats can use their wings to propel themselves, just like birds. This is true flight. Bats do have to fall from a height so they can catch air in their wings before they begin to flap, but it doesn’t have to be too high. Bats such as Pallid Bats, that are gleaners focus on catching insects near the ground and occasionally find themselves on the ground while hunting. They can scramble to a rock or low shrub and get high enough to catch some air with at least one wing flap, and they are off.

There is one type of bat that can takeoff from the ground and that is Vampire bats. Since they are adapted to finding food on the ground, their anatomy has developed to allow them to make a small jump and catch the air from the ground. 

Bat anatomy has changed very little from the Eocene epoch which is about 60 million years ago. The oldest fossils found are some of the best persevered and most complete. Fossil have been found in Germany and North America and they show fully formed bats. It doesn’t tell us much about the divergence of bats but is does tell us that the anatomy of bats has changed very little from their first appearance in the fossil record. When that happens it means that animal is so well adapted to its niche in the ecosystem that they haven’t needed to change. To me it means that bats are perfect. 

So now you know that bats are mammals, that they are not rats, that they are the only mammals capable of true flight, and you know the super cool meaning behind their scientific classification of Chiroptera. This is just my first favorite thing about these amazingly cool, misunderstood animals.

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next we for another exciting episode of bats.  

    

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This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.