Ten Things I Like About... Podcast

Bats: Myths Part 2

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and 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. 
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.
There are so many myths about bats that I HAD to do a second episode. The seventh thing I like about bats is continuing to myth bust.
In the last episode we covered why bats fly around our heads: not because they want to get into our hair. We talked about diseases: bats do carry disease but the odds of contracting a disease from them is slight and completely avoidable. And we talked about all bats wanting to suck are blood: completely false only one species of bat, out of all 1400 species, even drinks mammalian blood. Most of these involved Microchiroptera so let’s talk about some myths that include Megachiroptera, as well as our little ones.
We’ve all heard, if not used, the saying “Blind as a bat.”, but bats are not blind. All species of bats can see. Some can see better than others but they all have functioning eyes, as far as we know based on the species studied as of the beginning of 2025. Microchiroptera typically have tiny eyes, which may have influenced the old saying, and they do not rely heavily on sight to maneuver their way through the world. But they do use their eyes.
Megachiroptera, our amazing fruit bats, have larger eyes and rely on their sight more than microbats. Most, if not all, Megabats do not use echolocation to find food and fly. Their chosen food item is not flitting around trying to make themselves a hard target. Fruit is pretty sedentary, just growing and hanging out on a branch, so Megachiroptera use their vision to find food. Their eyes are much more advanced then bats that rely on echolocation to find their prey. Some nectar eating bats also have larger, higher functioning eyes that can help them find flowers in bloom.
So our first myth busted in this episode is that bats are blind. This is completely false, bats are not blind. Maybe we should rephrase and say “Blind as a Cave Fish?”
Myth number two: Bats are filthy vermin. This one is also false. Bats keep themselves very clean. They are a lot like cats in that they groom themselves fastidiously. They must keep their wings clean to be able to fly. If there is too much gunk built up on that thin skin, they can’t fly right. 
When I was studying the Tri-colored Bat in Georgia during winter hibernation, I actually caught a few bats grooming themselves in the hibernaculum. I also did an internship with the Lubee Foundation in Florida that houses the largest colony of fruit bats in the United States. These bats spent the majority of their day grooming themselves and each other.
Constant grooming also keeps them clean of parasites such as mites and ticks. A build up of these bloodsuckers can drain a bat to the point where they are too weak to hunt for food. Helping keep your neighbor free of these little pests also helps keep you free of these little pests, especially when you live in a colony.
So, myth number two busted. Bats are not dirty vermin, they are very clean animals.
Our third myth involves only fruit eating bats. Many people think that bats devastate fruit crops and should be exterminated to preserve farm grown produce. This is false. Bats actually help keep farmed groves healthy and productive.
Fruit bats do eat fruit, of course, but they target overripe fruit. They favor the fruits that have passed that perfect ripeness and are on the edge of rotting. This is not the fruit that we want to eat and not the fruit that farmers harvest. When farmers let bats do their thing, it helps keep the groves healthy by ridding the trees of fruits that attract insects and rodents that can decimate a crop. If you keep bats from doing their jobs, then you get these pests.
We actually have bats to thank for some of the fruits that we love to eat. Banana, mango, and avocado plants are all pollinated by nectar eating bats. 300 species of fruiting plants rely on bats to either pollinate them or spread their seeds. When fruit bats eat the overripe fruit they often swallow the seeds. The seeds pass through their digestive track and are deposited, with a little fecal fertilizer, far from the parent plant where they will grow into another plant.  
Those of you out there that like tequila, have another reason to thank bats. Agave plants that are used to create tequila are only pollinated by nectar eating bats like the Lesser Long-nosed Bat. 
The last myth is one that I talked about in the very first episode of this series. Bats are flying rodents. False! Bats are not rats with wings and the taxonomic classification that I discuss in that first episode 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, bats are in Order Chiroptera. 
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, reinforces the fact that bats and rats are not related outside of them both being vertebrate mammals. 
This is a wide spread myth from all over the world and can be seen in some of the names used for bats on other languages other than English, for example. Letushiya meesh is the Russian name for bats which translates to “flying mouse”. But, listeners, you now know the truth about whether bats are rodents. They are not rats, mice, or any other kind of rodent.
Well that covers most of the common myths about bats and as you can hear these animals are very misunderstood. That’s why myth busting is my seventh favorite thing about bats.
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 week for another episode about bats!
 
(Piano Music plays) 
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.

Bats: Myths

Summary: Bats what to fly into your hair and suck your blood! False! In this episode Kiersten talks about some of the most common myths about bats and uncovers the truth.
 
For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and 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. 
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.
We are just halfway through bats, listeners, and am am super excited for this episode. One of my favorite things when I teach about bats is myth busting. So, the sixth thing I like about bats is breaking down and wiping away the myths that make us fear them. 
As humans we are often afraid of the dark and we are definitely afraid of things we do not understand. This is a double whammy against bats. They come out at night, fly around where we can’t see them, and make strange squeaky noises we don’t understand. Misunderstanding leads to myths, myths lead to fear, and fear leads to bad news for bats.
In this episode we’re going to take a look at some of the most common myths about bats and determine what’s true and what’s not. 
One of the oldest myths about bats is that they want to fly into your hair.  I understand where this one came from, but it one hundred percent false. Bats do not want to be in your hair. This originated from campers misinterpreting bats swooping around their heads as they were enjoying the outdoors at night. Okay, if they don’t want to get into my hair, what are they doing swooping around my head?
If you are outdoors, there are others creatures that are attracted to us such as mosquitos. If you are sitting by a fire, other species of insects are attracted to the heat and light. I think you see where I am going with this, the bats are swooping down to catch the insects that are hovering around our heads. Anyone who has ever been bitten by a mosquito, you are probably thankful for this behavior. One less mosquito…am I right?
I have actually used this behavior to advantage when I took a mammalogy class and we went out the study bats in the wild. If you stand on a well used trail with your headlight pointing straight forward and stay still, insects will begin to fly through your light. The bats won’t be far behind. You can see them swooping through the light to catch the insects and it is so cool!
This brings me to the second half of this myth. Bats only end up hitting your head when you panic and throw up an arm up and they are unable to avoid the sudden movement. They are never aiming to land in your hair. 
Why did the bat that got trapped in my house swoop at me? There wasn’t a swarm of insects in my living room! First, bats never want to be in your living space, but sometimes they get lost or they’ve been roosting in your cabin when you haven’t been using it and you coming in for a weekend disturbs them. They just want to get out and away from you and back to a quiet roosting spot. What happens when they swoop toward you in the middle of the room is that as they are flying around looking for a place to hide or an exit and as they approach the walls they have to slow down to turn around. When they slow down they lose elevation and swoop toward the floor in the middle of the room where you’re standing flipping out. 
Don’t panic. Just relax. Open a door if you can to offer an exit. If the bat lands on the wall and settles down, you can carefully place a box over the bat and use a piece of cardboard and slowly slip it under the box from the bottom up to catch the bat inside the box. Holding both pieces together, take the box outside away from the building and release the bat.
Okay now that we know that bats don’t want to tangle up in our hair, let’s talk about diseases. Can bats make us sick? Do bats get sick? Yes and yes, but that’s not the end of the answer. Just like any other mammal, bats can get sick and can transmit diseases to other mammals. 
Histoplasmosis is a disease caused by a fungus called Histoplasma capsulatum. Humans can become sick if they breath in the spores of the fungus. Histoplasmosis is often associated with bats and birds, but neither one of them is responsible for the illness. The fungus loves to grow on fertile poop. They especially love places with lots of poop. Colonial bats that are roosting together in building or caves create a lot of poop. Bats are typically very loyal to roosting sites and will use them continuously for an entire season, so that create a bunch of poop. The fungus will grow on the poop piles and when another mammal, such as a human, comes across the fungus laden poop they may breath in the spores and get sick. Not the bats, or birds, fault.
Now let’s talk rabies. Almost all mammals can become infected by and transmit rabies. Bats have long been saddled with the misconception that they carry rabies and transmit it willynilly. Bats can contract rabies, just like almost any other mammal, and they can transmit it to another mammal, but they cannot carry it throughout their entire lives. Rabies is fatal. It is a virus that replicates and finds new hosts. That is it’s only goal, survival. When the mammal that it is in begins to die, it wants a new host. No mammal can host it for more than 14 days without perishing. 
Protecting yourself from both of these diseases is easy. Don’t enter a cave or building that you know is a roost for a large colony of bats. If you must, or they have taken up residence in your attic, wear a respirator and contact professionals that can relocate the colony so the roost can be cleaned and sanitized. When it comes to rabies, don’t handle any wildlife, including bats. When animals are suffering from the end stages of rabies, the virus causes the infected mammal to behave unusually in hopes of encountering a new possible host. 
If you see a bat on the ground, or active during the day, don’t pick them up. Call for assistance and follow their instructions to protect yourself and the bat. You can place a cardboard box over the bat to keep it and others safe until someone can assist you.
The last big myth of this episode is that all bats want to suck my blood! This is defiantly false. There is only one species of bat that wants to suck a mammals blood. The Common Vampire Bat, Desmodus rotundus, is a blood drinker. Two other species of bats are also blood drinkers but they specialize on birds. These bats are fall ound only in Central and South America. There are no reports of these bats being found anywhere else. 
Common Vampire Bats typically feed on cattle and goats but they can feed from humans, as well. Just like any animal that has found a consistent food source, they will revisit that food source night after night. They never take enough blood to suck an animal dry because these bats weigh only ounces. They take enough to survive and that is all. 
My pattern remains the same and I have gone over time again. This episode discussed myths primarily about Microchiroptera but there are myths out there about Megachioptera as well and we will delve into those in the next episode.
Thank you for joining me for my sixth favorite thing about bats, myth busting.
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 week for another episode about bats!
 
(Piano Music plays) 
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.

Bats: Migration

Summary: To migrate or not to migrate? How do bats deal with cooling temperatures? Join Kiersten as she travels through bat migration.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes: 
“America’s Neighborhood Bats,” by Merlin Tuttle
“The Bats of Europe and north America,” by Wilfried Schooner and Eckard Grimmberger
“Flying-Foxes - The bush refugees” by Martin Pueschel
Backyard Bats Project: https://www.azgfd.com/wildlife-conservation/living-with-wildlife/backyard-bats-project/ 
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
Bats: Migration
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and 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. 
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.
The fifth thing I like about bats is migration. Yes! Bats do migrate, well some bats migrate. Have you ever wondered why you see bats in the spring and summer and not in the winter? Many microbats either migrate or hibernate, while megabats may migrate from area to area following the fruiting and flowering seasons.
In this episode we will investigate the ways bats cope with colder weather in temperate regions or the non-fruiting season is tropical areas.
Let’s start with a quick definition of migration. Migration is a mass movement of living creatures from one area to another. It is often seen seasonally and can be influenced by available resources. Birds will migrate north in spring following available food resources and seeking optimum breeding grounds. They will migrate south again for the winter as the northern regions cool down diminishing food resources. Male tarantulas will migrate much shorter distances in fall searching for female mates. Bats that rely on insects can either migrate from northern regions to southern regions where the insects are still active in, or hibernate in place during the colder months of the year.
The insectivorous bat species of North America choose one of these two options. The Mexican Free-tailed bat, one of the most plentiful species in southern United States, also known as the Brazilian Free-tailed Bat, is a migrator. They will spend the warmer parts of the year in the United States traveling as far north as Northern California all the way across the country to South Carolina. Here they hunt insects at night and roost in caves or bridge overpasses during the day. They travel and roost in huge colonies and some roosts can number in the millions. It’s quite a sight to see them exit their roosts come sundown. If you are ever in an area where you can do this, do it. It is something you don’t want to miss in your lifetime.
Come colder temps in late fall when insect activity begins to slow, Mexican Free-tailed bats begin to depart. They are heading to Central and South America, following warmer temperatures. They will find caves and other enclosed spaces to spend their days until spring and summer roll around again when they will head north .
The Big Brown Bat, another insectivorous species found in North America, is a permanent resident where it is found. And they are found all over North America from Mexico to the northern border of some Canadian provinces. They are much more tolerant of colder temperatures and will hibernate as opposed to migrate. As insect activity wanes they will search for secure hibernating structures. We call these hibernaculums, and Big Brown Bats are not terribly picky. When I was researching my thesis, I found Big Brown Bats in the cave where I filmed the Tri-colored Bats. They were much closer to the entrance of the cave where temperatures were colder and less humid than the interior where the Tri-coloreds where found.
Big Browns will hibernate in groups, small or large, or as individuals in caves, abandoned or little used buildings, attics, walls, even under tree bark. They are generalists that are quite adaptable to their environment, which is why they are one of the most widespread bats in North America.
Not all migrators are insectivorous bats. The Lesser Long-nosed Bat migrates from southern Mexico to the Southwestern states of the US. They are nectar eaters and they follow the blooming flowers. They don’t come up too far into the United States but they love the flowering cactus and agave plants of the lower desert regions. They come up just after the rainy season in spring that jumpstarts the blooming season in the desert. There is actually a Community Science Project called Backyard Bats that is ongoing in Arizona with the Arizona Game and Fish Department. This project asks you to monitor your hummingbird feeders overnight to determine if nectar is going down during the night. If it is you may have visiting bats! For those of you in Arizona, I will leave a link in the show notes so you can participate in this project.
European bats have similar choices when dealing with changing temperatures. The Lesser Horseshoe Bat found in Europe is a permanent resident where they are found. They utilize hibernaculums in the winter and separate roosts in the warmer months. So, we could consider them short distance migrators. They travel only about 5 to 10 kilometers or 3 to 6 miles between the different sites. They are active during peak insect activity.
The Greater Mouse-eared Bat, an insectivorous bat found in Central Europe, is classified as a partial migrant. Partial migrants fly over 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, from winter to spring roosts. 
What about fruit-eating bats that don’t have to worry about changing seasonal temperatures? They migrate. They don’t migrate as far as some of our insectivorous friends in North America, but they still travel following food. They are a bit more like permanent residents because they stay in the same region, but they travel around that region following the blooms and fruits in trees. Most will roost together so you can see large groups of bats flying through the sky searching for ripening fruits. This movement is impacted by available food and also by the rainy season.
To migrate or not to migrate? Another amazing adaptation that makes bats even more fascinating.
Thanks for traveling with me through this episode because my fifth favorite thing about bats is migration.
  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 week for another episode about bats!
 
(Piano Music plays) 
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.

Bats: Reproduction

Summary: How do bats make more baby bats? Let us count the ways! Join Kiersten as she discusses the various reproductive techniques bats use to make more bats.
 
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
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and 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. 
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.
I apologize for missing last week, listeners. The holidays snuck up on me and I just didn’t have time to write, record, edit, and post before Christmas was upon me. Let’s get back to bats!
The fourth thing I like about bats is making more bats! Chiroptera reproduction is interesting and diverse. Microbats and Megabats are mammals, so they give live birth and nurse their young with milk, but we’re going to take a closer look at the reproductive cycle of some of the specific species of bats in this episode. 
As my loyal listeners know, I earned my Master’s of Science in Animal Behavior by studying the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored Bat, Perimyotis subflavus. I chose to study the breeding behavior of this particular bat because they are heavily impacted by White-nose Syndrome, a disease that impacts the hibernation behaviors of bats that overwinter in caves that remain around 55 degrees or cooler throughout the year. Many of the caves on the East coast of the United States fit this bill. I will be talking more about this problem in a future episode. The reason I wanted to study the breeding behavior is because we did not have a record of how these bats reproduced. If their numbers fell so low that we needed to intervene to help save the species from extinction, it was essential that we knew how they reproduced so we could offer everything they needed in a captive setting.
So, off I went with my husband in tow to sit for hours at a time in a dark cold cave at 2am to record the behavior of hibernating Tri-colored Bats. What did I learn? We discovered that in this cave, the Tri-colored Bat males will seek out females during their hibernation periods and mate with them. Yes, that’s right these little boogers mate with the females while they are sleeping! We were shocked! But it is the optimal time to mate with females without having to expend excessive amounts of time and energy vying for their attention. 
I agree that it sounds terrible. Not very nice at all. No consent from the females, but it works for this species of bat. The males and females go their separate ways as soon as the winter season passes so the males have no chance to breed later in the year. The female’s body stores the sperm until it is needed. When the time is right, the sperm will fertilize the egg and she will become pregnant. 
Many species that hibernate in caves breed during the fall season as males and females are swarming into the caves. For these species there are two paths to fertilization. One I just talked about, where the female stores the sperm in her reproductive tract until spring. Another path is immediate fertilization. Long-fingered bats from the Old World practice this method. The females and males breed in fall and fertilization happens immediately, but development of the fetus is slowed during hibernation so that the female will be ready to give birth come spring. 
For species that have a long distance migration, such at the Brazilian Free-tailed Bat, breeding occurs most often in the early spring as they are entering their summer roosts. The physical stress placed upon them by a migration from Central America to the Southern United States may prevent them from breeding until they reach their destinations.
Tropical species of bats that are not impacted by temperate weather changes have a greater variety of reproductive patterns. Insectivorous species that rely on invertebrates for food are constrained by the wet and dry seasons and typically have one offspring a year during the height of insect season. 
Species of neotropical fruit-eating bats will often have two reproductive cycles a year. Bats in family Phyllostomidae will breed early in the year, a few months later the young are born, then the females will enter a postpartum estrus and become pregnant again. This allows them to have more young during the flowering and fruiting season of the year before the rainy season begins. The Jamaican Fruit Bat has a slight alternation in that they will breed early in the year and birth young a few months later as we just discussed, but their second cycle will have a lengthened fetal development, so that they are pregnant during the rainy season and birth their second young when the dry season occurs again.
Now, attracting mates is something that many species of bats have to concern themselves with, and they have so many ways to do it!
The Gambian Epauletted Fruit Bat has whit tufts of fur on it’s shoulders that are used to attract a female. With this and an attractive scent release by glands, they attract a female for mating. This is an active form of mating where the female chooses her mate. 
African Hammer-headed Fruit Bats form leks during breeding season. Leks are display grounds where males gather to perform to attract and win a mate. These particularly bat males will call loudly to get a female’s attention as she passes and hopefully win her favor. 
Courtship displays can include wing-flapping, vocalizations, and mutual grooming. Sac-winged bat species will hover in front of a female while opening a glandular sac that is located in front of each wing. We presume that he is wafting a pheromone at her to win her attention. 
In some flying fox colonies where males and females roost together throughout the year, males do very little to attract a female’s attention for mating and often mates with her even when she doesn’t appear to agree. 
When young are born, females will give birth in a roost site. Sometimes that is in a nursery, like the Mexican Free-tailed bats, where many mothers are giving birth in the same place. Sometimes that is in a smaller colony with males and female together such as many flying fox species. And sometimes that is alone, like the red bat species of North America, that are solitary roosters. 
Young are born hairless and helpless. Their eyes are closed and they cannot fly. They will drink milk produced by their mother. During birth, some mothers will hang upside down and the young will instinctively grasp onto the mothers fur, while some Megachiroptera will use their thumb-like hooks to hold onto a branch creating a four pointed position that helps them catch their young as they are born. 
There is evidence that fruit bats that live in the same colonies throughout the year will have helpers at birth. Older females will come to the aid of new mothers, physically helping them birth their young and guiding the pup into their arms, while younger females will roost nearby watching. This has been seen in captive colonies many times, with one or two reports from wild colonies. But, boy oh boy, what an amazing behavior! There is still so much we have to learn about bat social behavior.
Young are born feet first so they can help pull themselves out of the birth canal. Bat young typically weigh up to 40 percent of the mother’s own body weight. That’s like a 115 pound woman, or approximately 40 kilos giving birth to a 40 pound baby, or a 20 kilo baby. Holy smokes! 
Bats that roost in large nursery colonies will leave the young behind, gathered tightly together to conserve body heat, when they hunt and return to nurse the young through the daytime. They find their young without fail every time they come back to the colony.
When young are first born, or in solitary nesting species, mothers will keep the babies on them as they search for food. They will cling to the armpit area holding on with the well developed thumb hooks with their mouths latched onto a nipple. Can you imagine flying around at night looking for insects with a baby attached to you that weights almost half your own body weight?!
Most species of bats will birth only a single pup, yes bat babies are called pups, at a time. A handful of species will birth twins, such as the Hoary Bat and the Red Bat, and will have one pup attached to each nipple. Most bats have only two nipples so producing more than that can be problematic. Not to mention how big each baby is!
The bats in the Lasiurus Genus can have two, three, four, or five pups at a time. They have four nipples so larger litters are doable. 
Bat pups grow quickly and are typically flying on their own at about about thirty days or so. Once they can fly, they are on their own. Or so we think. We are still studying this and some research shows that young my rely on their mothers for a longer period of time. They may learn much more from their mothers than we know. There is no current evidence that males have any role in raising the young past fertilization.
Well, I’ve done it again listeners, I have gone over time. I think you can expect that with every episode in this series about bats. If you can’t tell, I do like them a lot. Thanks for joining me for my fourth favorite thing about these amazing mammals, their reproduction.
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 week for another episode about bats!
 
(Piano Music plays) 
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.

Bats: Microchiroptera

Summary: Now that we've talked about Megachiroptera, let's talk about Microchiroptera! Join Kiersten as she talks about the smallest bats.
 
For my hearing impaired followers, a transcript 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
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
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. 
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.
The third thing I like about bats is Microchiroptera. To be honest I like everything about bats, but I have set a precedent and must follow the pattern of previous series, so third thing it is!
Last episode we talked about the larger bats called Megachiroptera that are found only in the Old World of Asia, Africa, Australia, and some Pacific Islands, so this episode we will talk about the Microchiroptera or smaller bats. These bats are not confined to a specific region in the world. They are found on every continent on the globe except Antarctica, and let’s face it, there is not a lot that wants to leave there full time. 
As a quick refresher, bats are all classified under Class Mammalia, Order Chiroptera, Mega and Micro are separated into suborders, so they are related in the fact that they are all bats, but there are enough differences in physical anatomy, behaviors, and genetics to be separated at a suborder level. Megachiroptera have only one Family Pterpodidae, but Microchiroptera has many families. Currently the classification of bats is still undergoing a bit of a shake up, as all classification is continually evolving, but we recognize 17 families of Microchiroptera with over 900 different species. 
As an example of the ever changing classification system, before I began my graduate work with the Tricolored Bat, it was classified as a pipistrelle with the scientific name of Pipistrellus subflavus, but when I was writing my thesis the scientific name had been changed to Perimyotis subflavus. Their genus had been changed based on research at the time. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed because it’s just more fun to say pipistrelles than perimyotis, but whatcha gonna do?
Okay, I’m going to follow the same pattern I did with the Megachiroptera episode, so these two suborders will be easy for you to compare should you wish to do so. 
Where are Microchiroptera found? They are found on every continent in the world which means they are found in the New and Old world. So those of us that live in the Americas get to pleasure of living with these little darlings. Now, this does not mean that all families of Microchiroptera are found on every continent. There are three families that are shared by both hemispheres Emballonuridae, Molossidae, and Vepertilionidae, but different species of these families will be found on different continents.
What kind of habitats are Microchiroptera found in? They can be found in almost any type of habitat. They are most common in forested area and deserts areas around the world, but some species can be found in grasslands and savannas. They can be found at sea-level and at elevations of 5000 meters above sea-level. They will be found in areas of high rainfall, and areas with scare rainfall. Microchiroptera are extremely diverse mammals. 
What do our smaller bats eat? The majority of micro bats are insectivorous, which means they eat insects. There are many ways that they catch insects but most of them catch insects on the wing. This is where echolocation comes in. If you are hunting something that is constantly moving and you are also constantly moving, how to you find what you’re looking for? Echolocation. Bats create sound with their larynx, much like the rest of mammals do, including humans, that they send out through their mouth. When they are hunting or navigating during flight they use a high-frequency, ultrasonic sound that once emitted bounces off of whatever it hits and comes back to the bat. The bats can decipher the frequency and time that these sound waves bounce back to them and they know if it is an insect they want to eat, another bat flying into their path, a stationary tree they must avoid, or anything else in their environment. These decisions are made in seconds! I mean, holy cow!
There are other methods of hunting insects, as well, but echolocation is still used. Some bats are called gleaners which mean they hunt for insects that are more stationary and may even be terrestrial, such as scorpions. These bats are listening for insects that are on low beaches of shrubs or rocks and many of these species are desert or grassland residents. The Pallid Bat that is found in the Southwestern regions of the US is a good example and one of their favorite foods is scorpions.
What else do Microchiroptera eat? We have a wide variety of food for these bats. Some are nectar eaters and hover like nighttime hummingbirds fishing nectar and pollen out of night blooming plants such as Saguaro Cactus and agave plants. Those of you out there that love tequila can thank these guys for your alcoholic beverages. Bats are then that pollinate the agave used to make tequila. Micro bats also eat other mammals. The False Vampire bat hunts small rodents. Some Microchiroptera specialize in amphibians, hunting frogs using their breeding calls. There are also fishing bats. They swoop down and skim the water dragging their large hooked claws just below the surface catching fish that are eating insect larvae. Three species of bats found in South America do eat blood. These are the true vampire bats, two specialize in avian blood, while one focuses on mammalian blood. Some bats eat other bats. As you can see Microchiroptera eat almost everything that the planet has to offer. This is one of my most favorite things about these animals. 
How do Microchiroptera and Megachiroptera differ? All bats have the same basic anatomy. So they all have a head, body, feet, and wings. They have the taut skin that is stretched across the wing bones called the patagium. The one bone in the wing that our smaller bats do not have is the thumb-like hook that protrudes far out on the Megachiroptera wings. Microchiroptera have a small nail that does grows on that small bone, but it does not stick out as far as the Megachiroptera. 
Another difference is in the patagium found between the legs of the smaller bats. Family Pteropodidae, our Mega bats, do not typically have a patagium between the legs, where are most micro bats will have some sort of patagium there. They can differ in style. Some will have a long tail that sticks out past the patagium, while others will have tails that end at the same length as the patagium. This skin can be used for quick changes in flight, that’s helpful when you’re chasing a small flying insect that can switch direction on a dime, and can be used as a scoop to grab an insect like a net and toss it to your mouth. I mean, how useful is that!
What time are Microchiroptera active? As far as we know, all micro bats are nocturnal. We are still discovering new species and animals are constantly evolving new behaviors to best survive in an ever changing world, but current knowledge stats that microbats are nocturnal. They are only out and about at night. Depending on species, that can be just before dusk and last only half an our, or come out after midnight and hunt until dawn. 
They can be found in large colonies such as Brazilian Free-tailed bats that will roost in groups that can number in the millions, or they may roost with a few other individuals such as tent-making bats in South America, or as solitary loners like the Red bats of North America. Each species has evolved this behavior to optimize their chances at survival. Males and females may not always be found together either. Unlike Flying Foxes that tend to stay together though the year, micro bat sexes may live separate lives during different portions of the year. For example the Tri-colored Bat that I studied, roost together in their hibernaculum in the winter, makes it easier to breed, we’ll talk more about that in our Reproduction episode, but they separate in the warmer months of the years with the females roosting together in nursery colonies while the males roost with each other elsewhere.
The smallest microchiroptera, and possibly the smallest mammal on earth, is the Bumblebee Bat, also known as Kitti’s Hog-nosed bat. This little guy weighs in a just 2 grams and 29-33 mm in length. That’s similar in size to a large bumblebee, hence their common name. They are found in western Thailand and southeast Burma. They are cave dwellers and can be found in colonies numbering 100 individuals. We believe that Bumblebees Bats are gleaners, based on the contents found in their stomach which consists of spiders and other insects. Their wings are also shaped to produce a hovering motion.
One of the largest Microchiroptera is the Ghost Bat of Australia. They have a head and body length of 10 - 13 cm and a forearm length of 10 -11cm. They weigh in at 130g to 170g which is about 65 Bumblebee bats. The Ghost Bat is a carnivorous bat that hunts large insects, frogs, birds, lizards, and small mammals. They generally roost in caves, old mines, or deep cracks in rocks. They are found all over Australia but mainly in the northern regions.
Once again, I could go on and on about these amazing animals, but I will end this episode here. This has been a pretty decent summary of my third favorite thing about bats, Microchiroptera. 
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 week for another exciting episode about bats.  
    
(Piano Music plays) 
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.

Bats: Megachiroptera

Summary: Join Kiersten as she talk about the largest bats in the world, the Megachiroptera. Don’t worry it’s not scary at all!
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
https://www.ecologyasia.com
https://batcon.org
“Bats in Question: A Smithsonian Answer Book,” by Don E. Wilson
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
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. 
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.
The second thing I like about bats is Megachiroptera. If you remember from the last episode, which I’m sure you do, Megachiroptera refers to the Old World bats found in Asia, Africa, Australia, and some Pacific Islands. These are the larger bat species and in this episode we’re going to take a closer look at them.
You may know Megachiroptera by their more commonly used name, Flying Foxes. They get the name from the fact that their faces look a lot like foxes. You may also hear these bats referred to as the Old World Fruit bats or megabats, There is only one Family under Suborder Megachiroptera and that is Family Pteropodidae. There are approximately 170 species of megabats but keep in mind we are always discovering new species of animals and scientists are always rearranging classifications based on new information. 
Where are Megachiroptera found? They can be found in Asia, Africa, Australia, and on a few islands in the Pacific Ocean. It is often said that they are Old World species only. That refers to the fact that they are not found in the Americas. No Megachiroptera are found in North, Central, or South America. Since I live in North America that make me a little sad because megabats are freaking awesome!
What kinds of habitats are these bats found in? That is often dictated by what they eat and most Megachiroptera are frugivores. So, they will be found where fruits are very plentiful. This places the bats in forested habitats that have large fruit bearing trees for our bigger species and medium size fruits for our smaller species. Forests seems to be the typical choice of most Megachiroptera because it offers the most variable fruit.
So what do they eat? We just answered this question. Most Megachiroptera eat fruit. Fruit makes up the majority of their diet, but an occasional flower or leaf might get thrown in the mix. It’s very interesting to watch fruit bats eat because they don’t actually eat the pulp of the fruit. They bite into the fruit and chew it into a pulpy mess letting the juices of the fruit flow down their throat as the more fibrous portions of the fruit fall out the sides of their mouth.
I did a two-week internship at the Lubee Foundation in Gainesville, FL some time ago and got to see this up close and personal. I was all prepared to watch these bats tear into the pieces of fruit and leave nothing behind, but that is not what happened. We were cleaning chewed up fruits off the floor by the shovelful. It was kinda gross, but it did not take away from the majesty of these animals.
What kind of fruits are we talking about? A lot of the same things that we eat. In the wild they will eat bananas, mango, papaya, figs, various berries, and citrus fruits. In captivity they get a lot of the same fruits with some different kinds of melons thrown in, as well. The fact that these bats eat the same kinds of fruits that we like is what gets them into trouble with fruit growers, but these bats are looking for the overripe fruit and tend to leave the ripe fruit or slightly underripe fruit that growers pick to sell alone. These bats actually do the fruit growers a favor by getting rid of the overripe fruit that attracts destructive insects and the bats help spread seeds to propagate more fruit plants.
Are fruit bats and flying foxes the same kind of bat? Yes and no. The term Flying Foxes typically refers to the Pteropus genus. These bats are the ones that have the long muzzle, the tiny little ears, the round heads, large teeth, and look a lot like foxes. These bats are fruit bats, but there are other species of bats that are also fruit bats but are not Pteropus bats. 
One of the questions people ask about Flying Foxes in particular, is why they have such large, scary teeth? They use those large, scary teeth to rip into the tough skin of the fruit they eat. Hav you ever tried to bite into a mango, or papaya or banana with just your teeth? It’s tough. Since they don’t have opposable thumbs, they use their teeth.
Megachiroptera tend to hang out in large groups and roosts during the day in trees. They will hang from their short back legs using the large curved claws that are used only for roosting. You can see them hanging in the tallest trees like Christmas ornaments. Like their smaller cousins, they do tend to be more active at night, but you can see them flying at dawn and dusk. This makes them a bit more crepuscular than nocturnal, but they can still be moving around at night. 
Unlike their smaller cousins, they don’t seem to use echolocation much, if at all. It does make sense that they might not use this because their prey items are fruit. The fruit typically doesn’t fly around at night trying to avoid being eaten by a bat. Scientists are still trying to determine if some species of Megachiroptera use echolocation, possibly in a different way than insect eating Microchiroptera.
Fruit bats do have better vision than their smaller, insect eating cousins because they rely on that to find their food. Most flying foxes actually have color-vision to help them find their fruit and determine whether it is ripe enough for them to eat. When they get close enough to the chosen item, they will also use their sense of smell to make sure this is just what they want. 
Now both Mega and Micro bats have essentially the same anatomy, with one striking difference. Megachiroptera have a large hook that protrudes from the top of the wing that looks an awful lot like a thumb with a claw at the end. They use this to help grasp fruit and use as a way to grasp onto branches when they need to hold on with their wings for various reasons. 
The largest species of Megachirotera comes from southeastern Asia. It is found only on the islands of the Philippines. The Golden-crowned Flying Fox has a wingspan over five feet long and is the heaviest bat weighing in at 3 pounds. It gets it’s name from the yellow colored fur that adorns it head and is also known as the Golden-capped Fruit Bat. 
The smallest species of megabat is the Spotted-winged Fruit Bat that is found in southern Thailand through Peninsular Malaysia to the Riau Archipelago and parts of Borneo. They weigh in at 15 grams and are only 5-6cm from head to toe. They get their name from the pale spots on the wings, fingers joints, face, and base of the ear. They are fruit eaters and are most often found in lowland primary rainforest or tall secondary forests. As you can see there is quite a wide range of species in the Megachiroptera.
Now I could go on, but I have used up my time. Thanks for joining me for my second favorite thing about bats, the Megachiroptera.  
 
 
 
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 week for another exciting episode about bats.  
    
(Piano Music plays) 
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.

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
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
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.  
    
(Piano Music plays) 
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.

Nepenthes: Conservation

Episode 94: Nepenthes: Conservation
Summary: How are Nepenthes doing in the wild? Can we help them if the need help? Join Kiersten as she answers these questions and more about Nepenthes conservation.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
“Nepenthes Conservation: Preserving Earth’s Carnivorous Marvels,” Singapore Carnivorous Plant Society. https://sgcarnivorousplantsociety.medium.com
Nepenthes Species. IUCN Red List, https://www.iucnredlist.org
“I’ll Have Flies with That,” by Kali Shiloh. Stanford Magazine, September 2022. https://stanfordmag.org *This article also highlights some responsible carnivorous plants growers.*
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and 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. 
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.
Once again we find ourselves at the bittersweet final episode of a series. It’s always exciting to finish a topic but sad to say goodbye to my chosen topic. The final episode of Nepenthes is the fifth thing I like about them and that is conservation.
Just like Rafflesia, the biggest obstacle to the survival of all wild growing Nepenthes is habitat loss. Once again we can blame ourselves for this as vast tracts of rainforest are cleared for agriculture, logging, and urban development. Unlike Rafflesia that cannot be collected from the wild because of its unique life cycle, Nepenthes can be collected from the wild. Collecting various species of Nepenthes has become big business and the race to possess the most unique and hard to obtain species has created a market for illegally harvested plants. 
Changing weather patterns is also impacting the future survival prospects of many Nepenthes species. Some habitats are receiving less rainfall causing many species of Nepenthes to struggle for survival. Their habitats are changing so quickly the plants cannot adapt fast enough.
And something that the entire world is battling that is also impacting Nepenthes, invasive species. Humans, whether knowingly or unknowingly, have spread both plants and animal species all around the globe. When these non-native species are introduced to other habitats, chaos ensues. Nepenthes plants are battling both invasive plants and animals that are either stealing the resources they need or damaging their habitats.
How can we help wild Nepenthes? By doing many of the same things we are doing for Rafflesia. We need to establish protected areas and reserves that include Nepenthes habitats. This action has the added bonus of helping any other plants, animals, and insects that also live in these habitats, as well as securing natural spaces that positively impact human health.
We can also enforce and strengthen legal protections already in place for Nepenthes species. Unlike Rafflesia, there are 123 species of Nepenthes listed on the IUCN’s Red List. The Red List is a catalog of species that have been studied enough to determine a population count and trending patterns of that population number. Many of the Nepenthes species listed are Least Concern which means that their population numbers are healthy and stable or increasing, but 45 of these species are categorized as Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered. The important thing about being listed by the IUCN is that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species can pass measures to help regulate international trade in the listed species.
Continued research of Nepenthes species in the wild is an important step to successful conservation. If we know where and what these plants need to survive, we can expand preserves and bolster laws protecting them. This also provides information that can be utilized to successfully propagate Nepenthes in captivity. Some of the critically endangered species may only be saved by propagating them in greenhouses and botanical gardens.
And the last thing we all can do to help is educate everyone about these wicked cool plants! Letting people know about these amazing living beings is the number one best way to ensure their survival into the future. Tell your friends, family, and strangers in the grocery store line about these unbelievable unknown plants. Feel free to give a little shout out for my Ten Things I Like About…podcast while you’re at it!
Let’s talk a little bit about the hobbyists that are propagating Nepenthes in captivity. Collecting Nepenthes out of the wild one of the activities that is cause for concern, but not all hobbyists are part of the darker side of collecting Nepenthes. Many, probably most, are people that follow all the rules and regulations established to protect the plant in the wild. Some are even involved in propagating critically endangered species. 
There is a market for Nepenthes outside of scientific study and conservation and this is where I fell down a rabbit hole of unbelievable prices. If you do a search for Nepenthes on the internet the first sites that pop up are online shopping sites. You can buy hundreds of different species ranging in price from $10 to $1900. The most expensive Nepenthes species ever sold is Nepenthes veitchii that sold for $3500 in 2020 earning a spot in the Guinness Book of World records for the most expensive carnivorous plant on the planet. 
If you are interested in delving into this interesting but addictive world, you can find several online sites to purchase any number of Nepenthes species. But do your research and make sure these sites offer lab grown Nepenthes so you are not supporting illegal collection for the wild. The lab grown species will also have a better chance of survival in captivity since they are already used to that environment. 
You can also join many Carnivorous Plant Societies from all over the world. Many of these organizations have seed banks that store varies species or carnivorous plants including Nepenthes. They will sell seeds to those interested in trying their hand at growing from seed and offer advice and support along your journey. Most of these organizations are also great places to find information on new scientific discovers. Many of them improve captive cultivation techniques and are happy to share with the public and research facilities simply because they love their plants.
That is all for this episode of Nepenthes. I am glad you joined my for my fifth favorite thing about this carnivorous plant, conservation.
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. 
  Reporting on Nepenthes and Rafflesia has been a fun ride for me and I hope you all enjoyed it, as well. Join me in two weeks for the beginning of a new series about a misunderstood or unknown animal.
 
(Piano Music plays) 
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.

Nepenthes: Time to Eat

Summary: Do plants eat meat? Yes they do! Join Kiersten as she discusses the diet of Nepenthes which includes more than just meat.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
“Caught in a Trap,” The Biologist 62(2) p12-14.
“Nepenthes lowii: the carnivorous plant that evolved into a toilet,” by Paul Simons. The Guardian, April 2023. https://www.theguardian.com
“Bats Are Acoustically Attracted to Mutualistic Carnivorous Plants,” by Michael G. Schoner, Caroline R Schoner, Ralph Simon, T. Ulmar Grafe, Sebastian J. Puechmaille, Liaw Lin Ji, Gerald Kerth. Current Biology, Volume 25, Issue 14, 20 July 2015, Pgs 1911-1916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.05.054
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and 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. 
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.
The fourth thing I like about Nepenthes is its diet. These are not your typical plants. Sunlight is not the only thing on the menu.
I have spoken of a portion of the diet in the previous episodes, so we all know that Nepenthes eats meat. But before we jump into that portion of their diet let’s look at the other half of their diet. It’s this half that led to the need for the meat eating side of Nepenthes nutrition.
Nepenthes is like other plants that use photosynthesis to grow. I don’t know about all of you listeners, but it has been a minute since 6th grade science class, so here is a refresher on how photosynthesis works. 
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to create sugars that they can utilize to survive. Plants take in carbon dioxide through small holes in the leaves, stems, flowers, and other parts of the plant. They will combine that with water, usually absorbed through the roots, and sunlight. The sunlight is the energy that helps the plant combine the carbon dioxide and the water together to create glucose which they use as food to grow big and strong.
If they only need those three things, what’s up with the soil? Soil offers plants minerals that they need to boost their health and growth.  Plants can live without it but to reproduce successfully they need an extra kick. The need for this extra kick is why Nepenthes evolved to eat meat. 
Most Nepenthes species grow in nutrient poor soil or no soil at all. So they evolved to get the extra minerals they need from another source. 
How do you catch prey if you don’t have teeth or claws and you are rooted in place? Well, you bring the prey to you! Nepenthes developed pitcher traps to attract and catch prey without having to use teeth and claws or roam about searching for prey. The pitcher develops from tendrils that grow as the plant matures. Tendrils will emerge from the midline of leaves and as it matures the tip of the tendril will begin to inflate with air. Once it has inflated to the desired size, which depends on the species and whether it is a lower pitcher or an aerial pitcher, it will fill with liquid. The top of the pitcher will pop open when the pitcher is ready for use. 
The pitchers of Nepenthes are classified as pitfall traps. This means that they are relying on insects falling into the pitcher and getting stuck inside. A pitfall trap is a trap that something falls into and cannot climb the walls to get out. So, how does this work for the Nepenthes pitcher?
The pitcher will attract insects with the scent of pollen. Insects will investigate the trap searching for the source of the smell. There is no pollen to be found inside the pitcher so the insects will turn to leave and discover that they cannot. As they try to climb out, the waxy lining of the pitcher will flake away leaving the insect struggling to get out. But no upward motion is possible and the prey item eventually falls into the liquid at the bottom of the pitcher.
The liquid is mainly water until prey falls in and sloshes the water around as it attempts to get out. The vibrations created by the struggle stimulate digestive glands which release a digestive acid. The acid is so strong that an insect the size of a midge will disappear completely within hours. Nepenthes rajah, one of the largest Nepenthes species, can digest mice!
What are they getting from these digested insects and mammals? Nitrogen and phosphorus which are vital minerals for the healthy growth of the plant. Those of you that are gardeners probably recognize those elements as being important to plant survival. If you supplement your gardens with fertilizer the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus are extremely important. 
Let’s take a closer look at a specific Nepenthes species’s hunting strategy. Nepenthes rafflesiana produces two different pitchers, upper and lower, like many pitches plants do. The uppers pitchers specialize in attracting flying insects while the lower pitchers focus on terrestrial insects.
The upper pitchers are narrow and release fragrant compounds that mimic the scent of flowers. This attracts a wide range of rainforest pollinators that mistake the scent for a good snack. They will enter the pitcher in search of the source of the aroma and come in contact with sticky polysaccharides that coat the wings rendering them useless. The insects can’t fly out and fall into the liquid to be digested.
The lower pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana use a lining of wax crystals to trap terrestrial insects. It attracts mainly ants. When the ants enter the pitcher the wax crystals attach to the ant’s feet preventing them from climbing out of the pitcher. It clings to the feet causing them to slip along the surface of the pitcher leading them to the liquid death below.
Some Nepenthes are generalists and are happy to take whatever they can get in their traps, but remember competition for pollinators is fierce so some spices have become specialists. Nepenthes albomarginata has a band of white hairs just below the rim of its pitchers. These hairs are bait for termites. And this Nepenthes sure knows how to do it right. It can catch 20 termites per minute during a frenzied feast.
Okay, now we’re going to talk about what inspired me to report on Nepenthes for my podcast. Remember in the first episode when I said these plants fed on something unusual that gives a whole new twist on the term “potty mouth”? Well, here we go!
Nepenthes rajah can digest mice and rats, but that’s not what it’s really shooting for when it attracts these animals. What is really wants is the rodents poop. Yep, that’s right it wants the rodent to use its pitcher as a potty. The feces of these animals is high in nitrogen  and much easier to digest than the body of an insect or mammal. 
Nepenthes lowii was the species that caught my eye when I was researching unusual plants. This plant has large pitchers that have evolved to attract mountain tree shrews that slip into the pitcher to lick a fatty substance that oozes from the lip of the pitcher. The shrew balance on the edge of the pitcher and as they eat they leave behind a deposit. There is some speculation that the substance emitted by the pitcher my have a laxative component that ensures the animal leaves behind a deposit before the depart. 
Nepenthes hemsleyana attracts a specific animal to roost in its pitchers so it can collect poo all day long. The lid of this plant’s pitcher is shaped specifically to reflect bat echolocation frequencies. Bats such as Hardwicke’s Wooly Bat use echolocation to find acceptable day roosts. They search for the right reflection from a plant structure to indicate an acceptable daytime roost. Nepenthes hemsleyana had evolved to reflect the correct frequency luring the bat in to roost throughout the day. The bat will poop as they sleep the day away and the plant will catch it in the pitcher. Talk about a Bed and Breakfast!
Can you believe it! This plant is so amazing!! I can go on about Nepenthes diets, but I’ve run over time already. I’m so glad you joined me for this episode of Nepenthes because my fourth favorite thing, honestly my most favorite thing, about them is their diet.
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 week for another episode about Nepenthes.    
 
(Piano Music plays) 
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.

Nepenthes: Life Cycle

Summary: How do Nepenthes become big strong plants? Join Kiersten as she walks through the stages of Nepenthes life cycle.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
Nepenthes. Wikipedia (This page is well referenced).
”Pitcher Plant: Tropical Pitcher Plants-Nepenthes sp.” The North Creek Wetland, https://www.uwb.edu
Tropical Pitcher Plant-Nepenthes. Carnivorous Plant Resource. https://www.carnivorousplantresourcs.com
Nepenthes Phylogeny, International Carnivorous Plant Society. https://www.carnivorousplants.org
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and 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. 
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.
The eighth episode of Unbelievable Unknown Plants is also the third episode of Nepenthes and the third thing I like about this supercool plant is its life cycle.
Now, I’m sure you remember the unusual life cycle of Rafflesia from previous episodes, boy that was a fun episode. Nepenthes is not quite as unusual, but it it still exciting. No laughing, this really is exciting.
It all starts with a meet-cute. A male Nepenthes meets a female Nepenthes, they fall in love, get married, have babies, and live happily ever after. No not really, but Nepenthes are dioecious which means individual plants are either male or female. Mature plants do start off as seeds, unlike Rafflesia they do not rely on a host plant to harbor them until they are ready to bloom. Nepenthes are more like traditional plants that rely on seeds germinating in soil to grow. 
They cannot pollinate themselves, so how do they create seeds? They must rely on a pollinator to get the whole reproduction thing started. Once the plant has matured, flowers will bloom. Both sexes produce flowers. Male’s flowers will produce pollen, while the female’s flowers will have carpels, the reproductive structure. The flowers will grow on a long spike. Several flowers will grow on one spike. The flower spikes are completely different structures from the pitchers that these plants are so well known for.
Pollen needs to get inside the carpel for the reproductive cycle to begin. Nepenthes rely on insects to do the pollinating, but as we discussed with Rafflesia the competition for insect pollinators is fierce, so Nepenthes has targeted non-typical insects to do their bidding. They give off a not-so-sweet smell to attract insects such as blow flies, midges, male mosquitos, and wasps; while also attracting more typical pollinators such as moths and butterflies. 
Before you start scratching your head and wondering how the insects survive a visit to a pitcher plant that eats insects, remember the flowers and the pitchers are two different parts of the Nepenthes plant. The pollinators are not attracted to the pitcher trap they are only attracted to the flowers, so they are safe to drink from the flowers and pick up and deposit pollen without getting eaten. 
Once the female flowers have been pollinated, a four-sided capsule will develop. Inside this capsule is 50 to 500 seeds. The seeds are light in weight with an embryo in the middle and two wings, one on each side. The seeds are distributed by the wind, so the low weight and wings help the seeds travel further away. Hopefully those seeds will settle in appropriate soil to begin the reproductive process all over again.
When they do, the seeds will sprout developing a shallow root system and a climbing stem that can reach several meters long. Along the stems alternate leaves will sprout. These leaves will become the pitchers. A tendril will extend past the end of the leaf at the midrib. This tendril will swell and droop eventually becoming the pitcher.
Most Nepenthes produce two types of pitchers, “lower pitchers” that grow near the ground and “upper pitchers” that grow higher on the plants. The lower pitchers are usually larger and may actually sit on the ground. The upper pitchers also called aerial pitchers are usually smaller and may be a differ color than the lower pitchers. These two types of pitchers can posses different features meaning one plant may have two different types of pitchers. The upper pitchers generally develop as the plant matures and will often create loops in the vine so the plant can hold onto something to help stabilize it.
This is an incredibly cool adaptation, I mean mind-blowingly cool, but it can make identifying species difficult. 
As the pitchers are growing they are developing a hatch on the top of the pitcher. When the pitcher is ready to attract and trap prey, the top pops open and the pitcher will emanate a scent that attracts targeted prey items. The two different types of pitchers that one plant produces often attract different types of prey. That is genius!
I guess the last question about the life cycle of Nepenthes is how long do they live? We don’t have a perfect answer for this yet, but it appears that they can live indefinitely. If they have the right habitat, food resources, and water, they can live forever. That doesn't mean that every Nepenthes plant will live forever. In the wild, they are battling habitat loss, food depletion, broad spectrum herbicide use, and poaching which all impacts their potential life span.  
It also doesn’t mean if you run out and buy one from the store that it will live forever. I know the ones that I brought into my house lasted maybe a year, but I was a novice at caring for them and bought them on a whim. People more knowledgeable than I can encourage them to live a long an healthy life in a home but you have to put some blood, sweat, and tears into it. 
Thanks for joining me for the third episode of Nepenthes because my third favorite thing about them is their life cycle.
 
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 you’re listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
Join me next week for another episode about Nepenthes.    
 
(Piano Music plays) 
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.