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Selects: How Bats Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello friends, it's your friendly neighborhood podcaster here, Charles W.
0:06
Speaker 1: Chuck Chuckers, Chuck Tran Bryant, picking from our past July thirtieth,
0:11
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. How bats work on baseball bats? Oh no, no, no,
0:17
Speaker 1: These are the little fuzzy winged, rodent looking things that
0:22
Speaker 1: a lot of people are scared of, but I think
0:24
Speaker 1: are super cool and super cute. Listen to how bats
0:27
Speaker 1: work right now.
0:32
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:43
Speaker 3: Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
0:47
Speaker 3: Chuck Bryant.
0:48
Speaker 1: I didn't know we were podcasting about dolphin.
0:51
Speaker 3: That was my bat.
0:53
Speaker 1: Oh I thought it was a dolphin.
0:55
Speaker 3: No, no, I was a bat.
0:57
Speaker 1: Well, then why are you wearing your dolphin running shorts?
1:00
Speaker 3: Has nothing to do with bats and everything to do
1:03
Speaker 3: with Dan Marino. They probably still have those dolphin running shorts.
1:07
Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
1:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember the little uh like real runners. They
1:11
Speaker 1: still wear those shorts, or maybe it's all spandex now
1:14
Speaker 1: like super tight.
1:15
Speaker 3: Okay, but they.
1:16
Speaker 1: Used to be just like a little wispy piece of
1:20
Speaker 1: but they were called dolphins. Well, I think that was
1:22
Speaker 1: the brand I wasn't familiar I remember, but you know,
1:26
Speaker 1: things were you know, the right gust of wind could
1:28
Speaker 1: reveal sure, lots of things.
1:30
Speaker 3: I know what you're talking about. Uh, like short shorts, Yeah,
1:33
Speaker 3: run real flimsy one.
1:34
Speaker 1: Real satiny, flimsy, wispy, and I think, uh, I think
1:38
Speaker 1: they were dolphin running shorts. And by the way, this
1:41
Speaker 1: this podcast is not sponsored by dolphin running shorts.
1:44
Speaker 3: No, it's a sponsored by the Bats of America.
1:48
Speaker 1: That's right. Which I always have liked bats, but after
1:53
Speaker 1: reading this, I'm so much more in love with bats.
1:57
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they need animals.
1:58
Speaker 1: It's amazing and not just like I learned a lot
2:01
Speaker 1: of stuff. I kind of knew about the echo location
2:03
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah.
2:06
Speaker 3: Actually, here's here's my impression of a bat echo locating
2:11
Speaker 3: pretty good, huh because humans can't hear it. That's right,
2:14
Speaker 3: I just did it. Really great, very nice, Chuck. If
2:18
Speaker 3: you are on the fence, well not you, because you've
2:20
Speaker 3: just stated that you're over the fence clearly in the
2:23
Speaker 3: bat yard. Pro bat pro bats me too. They never
2:28
Speaker 3: did anything to anybody on purpose, aside from some of
2:31
Speaker 3: them sucking your blood while you sleep. Aside from that,
2:33
Speaker 3: it's super rare. Bats seem to be pretty great animals.
2:37
Speaker 3: And if you're on the fence about bats and you
2:40
Speaker 3: want to go over to the pro bat side, go
2:42
Speaker 3: onto YouTube and type in bat eating a banana.
2:45
Speaker 1: It's very cute.
2:46
Speaker 3: It's adorable. Yeah, there's also baby bat burrito videos. Yeah,
2:50
Speaker 3: they're wrapped up in a blanket, not a tortilla. Yeah,
2:53
Speaker 3: there's a lot of cute bat videos out there, because
2:55
Speaker 3: there's a lot of cute bats there. Sure are, my friend,
2:58
Speaker 3: And you might say, no, no, no, I've seen bats.
3:02
Speaker 3: They are as ugly as pure evil gets. Yeah, you're
3:07
Speaker 3: talking about what are called micro bats, the ones with
3:09
Speaker 3: the crazy nostrils that actually make you me gag.
3:13
Speaker 1: Oh really? Oh yeah, I think they're cute too. I mean,
3:16
Speaker 1: I get it because they definitely look like literary ghules
3:22
Speaker 1: and fiends.
3:23
Speaker 3: But which makes you wonder. I wonder if fiends and
3:26
Speaker 3: ghules were modeled after those types of bats.
3:29
Speaker 1: Oh I'm sure.
3:30
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I didn't realize it was so obvious.
3:33
Speaker 1: Well no, I mean it would have to, because that's
3:34
Speaker 1: a real thing, and they look so much alike.
3:37
Speaker 3: Maybe no one had seen a bat and then they
3:39
Speaker 3: made gargoles and like what a coincidence.
3:42
Speaker 1: Or maybe a bat just died at the feet of
3:44
Speaker 1: an artist one day and he's like, oh, man, I
3:45
Speaker 1: gotta cast this in clay and put it on my
3:49
Speaker 1: front doorstep.
3:50
Speaker 3: I know what you were driving at. Though. They are
3:53
Speaker 3: cute in their own really weird uncanny way.
3:56
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah so, but but nothing like the flying fox
4:00
Speaker 1: are legit cute?
4:01
Speaker 3: No, and actually this article needs to be updated. Man,
4:04
Speaker 3: So bats are there's actually, beats are the only flying mammals.
4:08
Speaker 3: We should say they're very unique animals. Only flying mammals. Wait,
4:11
Speaker 3: what about the penguin non flying and a bird? Oh
4:16
Speaker 3: it didn't even come close, gotcha. Bats are mammals, Yeah,
4:19
Speaker 3: and they're more closely related to humans than say, like
4:22
Speaker 3: the fox or the rat or whatever that they're frequently
4:27
Speaker 3: described as being the flying version of Sure, and there's
4:32
Speaker 3: I think something like twelve hundred species of bats.
4:35
Speaker 1: It's a lot of bat species.
4:36
Speaker 3: And they all belong to the order chirop Terra, which
4:41
Speaker 3: means hand wing, which we'll get to.
4:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:43
Speaker 3: And then bats typically are subdivided into two suborders. And
4:47
Speaker 3: it used to be mega chirop Terra and micro chirop terra.
4:50
Speaker 1: Is that not right anymore?
4:51
Speaker 3: No, because science is specifically, like taxonomy used to be
4:57
Speaker 3: kind of dumb. It was just based on appearance, and
5:00
Speaker 3: then once the field of genetics came along, they started
5:03
Speaker 3: like genetically testing things and realizing that that's not a
5:06
Speaker 3: really good way to categorize things.
5:08
Speaker 1: Like this skunk looks like a raccoon, but they're not
5:11
Speaker 1: the same thing.
5:11
Speaker 3: Right, so maybe they shouldn't be in the same order
5:14
Speaker 3: any longer. Yeah, this is the case with bats. So
5:17
Speaker 3: it used to be based on their size megabats and
5:19
Speaker 3: micro bats or mega chirop terra and micro chirop terra. Now,
5:25
Speaker 3: because of genetic testing, some of the very small bats
5:28
Speaker 3: are now in the megabat order sub order and vice versa.
5:32
Speaker 1: But those are still suborders they are, but.
5:35
Speaker 3: They've renamed them to megabats and micro bats.
5:38
Speaker 1: Oh, I gotcha.
5:39
Speaker 3: But so, for example, the long tongued fruit bat is
5:42
Speaker 3: considered a megabat, but its wingspan is only about ten inches, right,
5:46
Speaker 3: it's a little thing.
5:47
Speaker 1: Whereas if you look at the flying fox or the
5:49
Speaker 1: fruit bat Asia African and Australia, those things are adorable
5:55
Speaker 1: and they are huge, Yeah, like six foot wingspans on
5:59
Speaker 1: some of these bats. Boys. Yeah, and I mean, I
6:01
Speaker 1: think they're gorgeous. I know. I think it's the wing
6:04
Speaker 1: just terrifies people. Yeah, because it looks like a cute,
6:07
Speaker 1: little fuzzy fox and then he goes.
6:10
Speaker 3: Right, it envelops you and take you to hell with.
6:15
Speaker 1: Well, that's what evokes. I think is is a cape
6:18
Speaker 1: that something would wrap around you and suck your blood. Yeah,
6:22
Speaker 1: like a vampire.
6:24
Speaker 3: Oh, I wonder if vampires were invented independently of bats.
6:30
Speaker 1: Uh, the what is the the cute little guy that Yeah,
6:35
Speaker 1: I posted a picture that fella on Facebook today just
6:39
Speaker 1: as a teaser. People didn't know that we're going to
6:42
Speaker 1: do an episode on it, just to get reactions, and
6:44
Speaker 1: most people are like, oh, that's super cute, and a
6:46
Speaker 1: lot of people are like, I still wouldn't touch that thing.
6:49
Speaker 3: Well, that's a really good, sensible thing. Like bats might
6:53
Speaker 3: be cute and all that, but they're also enormous reservoirs
6:56
Speaker 3: for diseases. They're like, yeah, top notch disease reservoirs for
7:00
Speaker 3: the diseases that you and I can catch, like ebola
7:03
Speaker 3: and rabies.
7:03
Speaker 1: Sure, and they think one of the reasons is because
7:06
Speaker 1: they and we'll talk about this later, but they're so
7:09
Speaker 1: comfortable with each other, they just huddle together, right, spreading
7:11
Speaker 1: disease on one another exactly.
7:13
Speaker 3: I mean like epidemic disease didn't take hold among humans
7:16
Speaker 3: until we moved into cities, and even in cities, like,
7:20
Speaker 3: we're still not elbow to elbow. Yeah, figuratively we are,
7:24
Speaker 3: but not in reality. Bats are literally elbow to elbow
7:28
Speaker 3: in their colonies, so disease just spreads anywhere at once
7:32
Speaker 3: among them.
7:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, however, about the raby scare, they are carriers of rabies,
7:37
Speaker 1: but not like people think. I think less than one
7:41
Speaker 1: half of one percent of bats are rabid, one half
7:46
Speaker 1: point five percent. And you're more way more likely to
7:49
Speaker 1: get rabies from raccoons and skunks And.
7:53
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, well there you go. That puts it in
7:55
Speaker 3: perspective because I like any raccoon I see. Maybe I
7:59
Speaker 3: should stop doing that.
8:00
Speaker 1: You should probably stop doing that.
8:02
Speaker 3: They bite me a lot.
8:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, she get checked out.
8:05
Speaker 3: Maybe I should.
8:07
Speaker 1: Uh so, yes, you said how many species about twelve hundred,
8:11
Speaker 1: and aside from varying in size like you said that,
8:16
Speaker 1: just a look of them, like the flying fox looks
8:19
Speaker 1: like we said, like little fox has that long snout,
8:21
Speaker 1: looks traditionally, like a mammal has smaller ears, and those
8:25
Speaker 1: little scary looking guys have those huge ears and that
8:29
Speaker 1: nose that makes you me gag.
8:30
Speaker 3: So here's the thing, Like, I believe that even that
8:34
Speaker 3: is up in the air now that they've started doing
8:36
Speaker 3: genetic testing. What is like that classification based on looks
8:40
Speaker 3: as well? Oh yeah, sure, it's it's just bat taxonomy
8:45
Speaker 3: is really up for grabs right now. It's really exciting time.
8:48
Speaker 1: Let's say, yeah, let's say generally speaking, then.
8:51
Speaker 3: Okay, one of the other distinctions too, typically that divides
8:55
Speaker 3: these two suborders, chuck, is what they eat. Yeah, the
9:00
Speaker 3: micro bats tend to be carnivorous. Yes, so it includes
9:05
Speaker 3: vampire bats, but vampire bats are not. Not all bats
9:08
Speaker 3: are vampire bats, even if they're carnivorous. No, most bats
9:13
Speaker 3: just the insects if they're carnivorous, Yeah, like mosquitoes. But megabats,
9:18
Speaker 3: including the big ones with the six foot wingspan. Yeah,
9:21
Speaker 3: the flying fox I think you said those are they're
9:26
Speaker 3: just hippies. They just eat plants.
9:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it, like literally nectar and spread pollen. Yeah,
9:33
Speaker 1: it's pretty great, like birds. Why is that funny?
9:38
Speaker 3: It's pretty great.
9:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is all right. Well, let's talk a little
9:42
Speaker 1: bit about the wing because this is where my learning
9:46
Speaker 1: really started here. Yeah, in researching this, the Geman word
9:51
Speaker 1: for bats is frida muse.
9:56
Speaker 3: I expected more from you than that, yeah, yeah, really, yeah,
10:00
Speaker 3: I expected you to put on like a metal hat
10:03
Speaker 3: with like a spike coming out of the top.
10:06
Speaker 1: That translates into flying mice. Yes for the curious.
10:09
Speaker 3: And people will say that because a bat does look
10:12
Speaker 3: kind of like a flying mouse or a flying rodent
10:14
Speaker 3: of some sort. But like I said, they're much more
10:18
Speaker 3: closely related to humans.
10:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you also might think they're like birds because
10:22
Speaker 1: they fly around. Not so when you look at the
10:25
Speaker 1: wing structure of a bat and a bird, very different.
10:29
Speaker 1: It Actually, if you look at a human if you
10:32
Speaker 1: held your arms out to your side with your elbows
10:34
Speaker 1: bent and your fingers spread, and then basically shook your hand, yeah,
10:39
Speaker 1: like you were going to do jazz hands exactly, and
10:41
Speaker 1: then imagine that there was a webbed membrane called a
10:46
Speaker 1: How would you pronounce that pattagym, patti gyum, patagium.
10:51
Speaker 3: I don't have one of those too.
10:53
Speaker 1: Those are the wings, tagium, the flesh. Yeah, there you go.
10:55
Speaker 1: The flesh of the wing if you held your hands
10:58
Speaker 1: out into jazz hands, but it was all webbed connected.
11:01
Speaker 1: That is way more what a bat's wing that looks
11:03
Speaker 1: like in functions like than a bird's wing. Right.
11:05
Speaker 3: So a bird's wing has rigid bones in it, right, Yes,
11:09
Speaker 3: And the muscles that control the wings are located basically
11:12
Speaker 3: at what would amount to your armpits.
11:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a socket.
11:15
Speaker 3: So like just do the chicken dance real quick and
11:17
Speaker 3: think about what you're doing. Yes, right, you're you're not.
11:21
Speaker 3: There's not really any movement in the actual arm. It's
11:24
Speaker 3: all at the shoulder joint. Same with birds. With bats,
11:28
Speaker 3: that is not the case because they're basically like winged hands,
11:32
Speaker 3: which is the reason their order is named that. Right. Yes,
11:36
Speaker 3: they can basically swim through the air, which allows them
11:41
Speaker 3: to dive, bomb and turn and twist and go up
11:44
Speaker 3: and down and go after these insects that can fly
11:47
Speaker 3: really fast, which constitute most of their prey, much more easily.
11:51
Speaker 3: And they're much more depth at maneuvering mid air than
11:56
Speaker 3: your average bird is.
11:57
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, like a thousand times. There's no science behind that.
12:01
Speaker 3: I would say even like fifteen hundred times. Okay, well,
12:04
Speaker 3: I mean, if there's if we're going without science, let's
12:06
Speaker 3: just say like a million times more.
12:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, a gazillion. They have little thumbs that extend out
12:11
Speaker 1: of the wing as a in the form of a
12:13
Speaker 1: little small claw, and this is what they use to
12:16
Speaker 1: climb trees. It's really neat how they fly. I guess
12:20
Speaker 1: we'll go ahead and let the cat out of the bag.
12:22
Speaker 1: They don't have enough lift with their wings to take
12:26
Speaker 1: off like sitting on a branch like a bird.
12:29
Speaker 3: Right.
12:29
Speaker 1: They don't have like strong enough legs to run, run, run, run,
12:33
Speaker 1: run down a runway and take off, so they hang
12:36
Speaker 1: upside down and drop and then start flying.
12:39
Speaker 3: Right. They have like small, withered little legs that they
12:43
Speaker 3: basically drag behind them as they crawl.
12:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so that's the why they climb trees. They
12:48
Speaker 1: climb up to a high launch point, right, and we'll
12:50
Speaker 1: get to the hangings meter because that's super cool too,
12:53
Speaker 1: and then just fall and start flying, right.
12:56
Speaker 3: And that's what beds do. That's what and that's how
12:58
Speaker 3: bads fly.
13:02
Speaker 1: Scientifically speaking, they believe that bats used to not fly,
13:07
Speaker 1: and thanks to natural selection, the ones who could leap
13:11
Speaker 1: further and further from tree to tree were more successful,
13:15
Speaker 1: and that eventually led to that patagium being formed.
13:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can fly kind of like lemurs are flying
13:24
Speaker 3: squirrels or something like that. Right, Yeah, So like one
13:26
Speaker 3: of them was born with an extra skin flap and
13:28
Speaker 3: everyone was like, you freak, and then it flew and
13:31
Speaker 3: they were like, wow, who's the freak now exactly look
13:34
Speaker 3: at all these insects I got. So they think that
13:38
Speaker 3: the bat evolved, like you said, from a tree dwelling mammal,
13:43
Speaker 3: which we likely did as well, which is why we're
13:46
Speaker 3: related to bats. Most likely we share some sort of
13:49
Speaker 3: single common ancestor that dwelt in trees, and probably bats
13:55
Speaker 3: evolved somewhere around one hundred million years ago, is what
13:57
Speaker 3: they believe. But I think the oldest fossils they found
14:00
Speaker 3: are like fifty million in change. Yeah, and these fossils
14:04
Speaker 3: that they found in Wyoming show that the wings are there,
14:10
Speaker 3: but the ears are not developed, which suggests that flying
14:14
Speaker 3: developed among bats before echolocation did, which has been a
14:18
Speaker 3: long standing debate. Did they did echo like location come first,
14:22
Speaker 3: did flying come first, or did they both evolve at
14:24
Speaker 3: the same time? And it turns out flying was first.
14:27
Speaker 1: Nice well, right for this break, we will talk about
14:31
Speaker 1: that echo location. How about that.
14:33
Speaker 2: Let's all right, Josh.
14:55
Speaker 1: We talked about the wing structure makes them able to
14:59
Speaker 1: hunt really well, but it's really a one two punch
15:02
Speaker 1: along with their echolocation or echo locative abilities.
15:08
Speaker 3: I think that's a word.
15:09
Speaker 1: Is that a word?
15:10
Speaker 3: Yeah? Right, So you can maneuver all day long, but
15:13
Speaker 3: if you can't find your prey, you're.
15:16
Speaker 1: Just doing a weird dance, right.
15:17
Speaker 3: Exactly, You're just showing off. And the way that bats
15:22
Speaker 3: find their prey. There's a common myth, Chuck that bats
15:25
Speaker 3: blind is bata, that bats can't see absolutely untrue. Ye,
15:29
Speaker 3: most bats have like perfectly good vision.
15:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, like exceptional vision.
15:34
Speaker 2: Even.
15:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a study at some German study I believe,
15:39
Speaker 3: that found that bats have rods and cones, which means
15:42
Speaker 3: they can see color in the daylight as well as
15:46
Speaker 3: like black and white stuff.
15:49
Speaker 1: Sure right, old movies.
15:50
Speaker 3: Sure yeah, before Ted Turner got his hands on.
15:53
Speaker 1: Them, oh boy, And that never went anywhere, it really didn't.
15:57
Speaker 3: But now it's like there, it's done. Now. Wizard of
16:00
Speaker 3: Oz is like gaudy as Gaudy is like the terra
16:04
Speaker 3: Cotta Army. Originally, well, no, Wizard.
16:06
Speaker 1: Of Oz always was both because when they get to
16:09
Speaker 1: oz it's color Oh.
16:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right, yeah what what? Oh? Gone with the wind?
16:14
Speaker 1: I think he did colorI he did colorize it.
16:16
Speaker 3: Okay, anyway, can you tell it's been a little while
16:21
Speaker 3: since we've done this.
16:23
Speaker 1: No, I think it's great.
16:24
Speaker 3: I can. It's also really hot in here, and it's
16:26
Speaker 3: getting hotter by the second. The more I stall, the
16:29
Speaker 3: hotter it gets. Allow me to continue. Okay, So bats
16:34
Speaker 3: echo locate as well as see. And again I'm not
16:37
Speaker 3: quite sure. I couldn't find this chuck, but I think
16:40
Speaker 3: microbats might be the only type to echo locate. Oh really,
16:43
Speaker 3: I don't think all bats do. The reason why is
16:46
Speaker 3: because if you're a hippie pollen eating herbivore bat, sure
16:51
Speaker 3: you don't need to echo locate your food. You can
16:54
Speaker 3: just fly around until you run into a flower, right, you.
16:57
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, and smash it and then just like lean
16:59
Speaker 1: over and suck.
17:00
Speaker 3: There's some nectar. Yeah, okay. If you are seeking flying
17:05
Speaker 3: insects as your prey, then yeah, you better be able
17:07
Speaker 3: to echo locate. And we can actually echo locate. There's
17:10
Speaker 3: a man who is sightless who can echo locate, and
17:15
Speaker 3: he's a human being he is. Yeah, I can't remember what.
17:19
Speaker 3: Maybe a Men's Health article on him like this dude
17:22
Speaker 3: just taught himself to echo locate.
17:23
Speaker 1: Did they call him batman?
17:25
Speaker 3: Probably? Yeah, I don't remember that much.
17:28
Speaker 1: Well, if you've ever been to a canyon, let's say
17:31
Speaker 1: a Grand Canyon. Okay, let's say the Grand Canyon. Sure,
17:36
Speaker 1: and you boom your your voice out there, Please don't
17:39
Speaker 1: say hello, or does anyone out there those are you know,
17:43
Speaker 1: come up with something better than.
17:44
Speaker 3: That, better than Pink Floyd lyrics.
17:48
Speaker 1: No, if it's in that context, then it passes.
17:52
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, Wait, what would you recommend for an echo?
17:55
Speaker 1: Man?
17:56
Speaker 3: That's your go to echo words?
17:58
Speaker 1: Definitely not echo.
18:00
Speaker 3: I think echo is great, it's hilarious.
18:02
Speaker 1: Definitely not hello. You know I would say, I would say,
18:05
Speaker 1: now batting for the New York Yankees, manny moto, many moto,
18:10
Speaker 1: That's what I would do.
18:11
Speaker 3: You could also do cockcock cachaw, see a chicken dance.
18:15
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that'd be good. So whatever you choose to
18:18
Speaker 1: go with, at your next visit to the canyons, you
18:22
Speaker 1: will hear that echo come back to you. And it's
18:24
Speaker 1: basically the same way that bats use, except instead of
18:28
Speaker 1: echoing off of a canyon wall. It's echoing off of
18:31
Speaker 1: a mosquito, sure, yeah or whatever.
18:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you make sound waves and it travels and
18:36
Speaker 3: it hits that canyon wall, it comes back to you,
18:39
Speaker 3: right yeah, And bats do the same thing. But like
18:41
Speaker 3: you said, they're bouncing off of a mosquito or some
18:45
Speaker 3: other flighted bug. Sure that it eats, And just from
18:50
Speaker 3: standard echo location, the bat can identify, oh, there's a
18:54
Speaker 3: mosquito there, Like all this other stuff, all the other
18:57
Speaker 3: sound that I just put out there came back at
18:59
Speaker 3: a much lower rate than this little spot did, and
19:03
Speaker 3: that spot is probably a mosquito. But it gets way
19:06
Speaker 3: more detailed than that.
19:07
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
19:08
Speaker 3: Basically bat's echo location is picked up, and they're still
19:14
Speaker 3: not entirely certain, like what kind of receptors the bat has.
19:17
Speaker 3: I mean, it's apparently all oral. But in the bat's
19:21
Speaker 3: brain it creates what would be about equivalent to our
19:25
Speaker 3: visual field, Like we see light bouncing off of stuff,
19:29
Speaker 3: and I can tell roughly how far away you are
19:31
Speaker 3: and where you are, and what position you're facing or
19:33
Speaker 3: what direction you're going, all through lightwaves.
19:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, in an instant, like we don't have to think
19:38
Speaker 1: about that like we see it and it's there.
19:40
Speaker 3: The bat's not calculating all of this, and it's just
19:42
Speaker 3: getting this Information's brain is automatically putting it together. And
19:45
Speaker 3: what it amounts again to like a visio of a
19:50
Speaker 3: visible visiospatial field.
19:52
Speaker 1: Wow.
19:53
Speaker 3: Right, And so it knows there's a mosquito. It's about
19:57
Speaker 3: this big, it's about yay big. It's traveling at this
20:00
Speaker 3: right in this direction, and it's like right below me.
20:03
Speaker 3: And it goes and gets the mosquito all from rather
20:06
Speaker 3: than picking up light waves, creating a sound wave and
20:10
Speaker 3: listening for its echo. Yeah, that's echolocation.
20:14
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
20:15
Speaker 3: So and also I should say, chuck, it's really good
20:18
Speaker 3: that this is ultrasonic, because some of them go up
20:21
Speaker 3: to like one hundred and twenty decibels, which is the
20:24
Speaker 3: equivalent of having a smoke detector like a couple inches
20:28
Speaker 3: from your ear.
20:28
Speaker 1: That is not fun.
20:29
Speaker 3: No, it shatters your life.
20:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So let's talk about the different parts.
20:35
Speaker 1: They will determine the distance of the mosquito by how
20:39
Speaker 1: long it takes that noise to return you and I
20:41
Speaker 1: could do that with simple math. At a canyon, we
20:45
Speaker 1: could actually calculate how far away that other wall is.
20:49
Speaker 3: With maths you and the canyons.
20:51
Speaker 1: You know, location, they can determine where it is and
20:55
Speaker 1: how big it is and what direction is moving by
20:58
Speaker 1: literally like if the mosquito sound bounces back and hits
21:03
Speaker 1: the right ear before the left ear, you know it's
21:05
Speaker 1: going to be the right right. That's pretty easy. And
21:08
Speaker 1: then they have all these little complex folds within the ear.
21:12
Speaker 1: It's not just like a big dumb human ear, like,
21:14
Speaker 1: we have lots of little folds that will help indicate
21:18
Speaker 1: its vertical position as well. So if they know it's
21:21
Speaker 1: coming from above, it'll sound different in the ear than
21:24
Speaker 1: if it's below right.
21:26
Speaker 3: And again to the bat, all this is happening automatically.
21:29
Speaker 3: It's brain is putting all this information together, and the
21:32
Speaker 3: bat knows there's a mosquito right below it.
21:36
Speaker 1: That's right. The size is determined by the intensity of echo.
21:39
Speaker 1: Something larger will have a you know, more intense echo.
21:45
Speaker 1: So that's a big, fat mosquito that just feasted on Josh.
21:49
Speaker 1: So it's got lots of delicious of blood, delicious blood.
21:52
Speaker 3: And they also use the Doppler effect chuck to determine
21:56
Speaker 3: whether something is going away from it or toward it.
22:00
Speaker 1: That's right.
22:01
Speaker 3: Remember the Doppler effect. I've mentioned it before and got
22:03
Speaker 3: it totally wrong. Yeah, let me try again. It's tough
22:06
Speaker 3: you ready. Yeah, So the wavelength of something is set,
22:10
Speaker 3: it's determined, right, yes, But if something is coming near you,
22:16
Speaker 3: that wavelength has to be compressed in a shorter space.
22:20
Speaker 1: Yes.
22:20
Speaker 3: So therefore the frequency the pitch increases. If something's traveling
22:24
Speaker 3: away from you, it has a lot more space between
22:27
Speaker 3: it and you to fill up that same wavelength that
22:32
Speaker 3: same yeah, the same wavelength, So the frequency the pitch
22:35
Speaker 3: goes lower. That's the Doppler effect, right, I think it's
22:39
Speaker 3: the Doppler.
22:39
Speaker 1: Why do I have feeling you're gonna get email to
22:41
Speaker 1: people like, oh Josh, so close?
22:43
Speaker 3: I really practice?
22:44
Speaker 1: But this one more thing. So that is how they
22:48
Speaker 1: determine distance, location, size, direction and direction.
22:53
Speaker 3: Right.
22:53
Speaker 1: Amazing.
22:54
Speaker 3: And also the actual sound that they're making when they
22:57
Speaker 3: echo locate. A lot of bats fly around with their
22:59
Speaker 3: mouths though, Yeah, and they look like they're just kind
23:02
Speaker 3: of slack jawed yocles.
23:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well it turns out they're making their echo location
23:06
Speaker 3: squeaks the whole time. Again, it's just ultrasonic, which is
23:10
Speaker 3: above the human threshold of hearing. Right, So it's squeaking
23:14
Speaker 3: the whole time. It's not just sitting there with its mouth. Agate.
23:16
Speaker 3: And some bats also, especially the microbats that have the
23:20
Speaker 3: crazy nostrils that make you me gag. Yes, those actually
23:25
Speaker 3: will echo locate and generate the sound through their nose.
23:28
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's why they look that way.
23:31
Speaker 1: They're like little speakers.
23:33
Speaker 3: Right, So, Chuck, I think we nailed echo location, don't you.
23:37
Speaker 3: Oh yes, and the Doppler effect.
23:39
Speaker 1: Maybe put that one to bed.
23:41
Speaker 3: And we will talk more about bats, including their little
23:44
Speaker 3: families that they stay in right after this, Chuck. Yes,
24:08
Speaker 3: so you talked a little bit about bats and how
24:10
Speaker 3: they love to huddle together. And it depends on the
24:13
Speaker 3: kind of bat. Yeah, the bloodthirsty bats, vampire bats.
24:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:18
Speaker 3: They actually tend to roost in small, little colonies or solitarily.
24:22
Speaker 3: I believe, sometimes in like really hard to reach places.
24:26
Speaker 1: Like the Lost Boys.
24:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like your fireplace.
24:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:31
Speaker 3: I had to battle a bat once in a fireplace.
24:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh yeah, smoke it out.
24:35
Speaker 3: Uh No, I didn't smoke it. I put on a
24:40
Speaker 3: leather coat over another coat, gloves.
24:43
Speaker 1: Recycled helmet before you do any like battle with nature.
24:47
Speaker 3: A laundry basket in a broom and I lost. But
24:53
Speaker 3: they they they'll be by themselves usually. That's a good
24:58
Speaker 3: giveaway that you have encountered a blood sucking bat, the
25:03
Speaker 3: hippie herbivore bats. Those tend to congregate enormous colonies, some
25:11
Speaker 3: often composed of millions of bats.
25:13
Speaker 1: Millions. Yeah, pretty amazing. Yeah. Well you mentioned that they
25:20
Speaker 1: do all this feeding and activity at dawn, dusk, and overnight. Yeah,
25:25
Speaker 1: because they will get eaten by hawks and falcons and
25:29
Speaker 1: things during the day and other predators too, so they
25:33
Speaker 1: like to stay away during the day and hide out,
25:37
Speaker 1: Like you said, the caves, dark places, sure, under bridges.
25:41
Speaker 1: We'll talk about Austin in a bit, right.
25:42
Speaker 3: Hawks don't typically go into caves, they hang out in trees.
25:48
Speaker 3: So bats go off and spend their days sleeping in
25:51
Speaker 3: caves upside down, upside down. And you were saying earlier
25:54
Speaker 3: that you were excited about talking about that, and I
25:56
Speaker 3: understand why.
25:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like I said earlier, the reason and
26:00
Speaker 1: they hang upside down is not to look creepy. It's
26:03
Speaker 1: because that's the way that they launched themselves to fly.
26:06
Speaker 3: Right, and when they're sleeping upside down, they're able to sleep.
26:10
Speaker 3: You would think that, well, yeah, if you're like hanging
26:13
Speaker 3: on to something upside down, you get tired. Yeah, you've
26:15
Speaker 3: got to really tense your muscles. Not with the bats,
26:18
Speaker 3: you would if you were doing that.
26:20
Speaker 1: This is the fact of the show for me.
26:21
Speaker 3: I think you should take it.
26:23
Speaker 1: Well, you're right, if I was hanging upside down, I
26:26
Speaker 1: would not last very long because second A, I would
26:30
Speaker 1: be clinched. Well, we couldn't even hang upside down because
26:32
Speaker 1: we'd be using our hands.
26:33
Speaker 3: And all the blood would rush to your head too,
26:35
Speaker 3: and you just pass out. It'd be really uncomfortable.
26:38
Speaker 1: That's right. But what would happen if we were to
26:40
Speaker 1: try to do that, or like to try to do
26:41
Speaker 1: a pull up? Let's say, huh is we would you know,
26:44
Speaker 1: clench our fist around something which contracts muscles, which are
26:49
Speaker 1: attached to your fingers by tendons. It's all one big connection,
26:54
Speaker 1: series of connections. Right to hang onto something, to class something,
26:59
Speaker 1: or to grab that coffee.
27:00
Speaker 3: Cup exactly, and you're exerting energy by contracting your muscle, right,
27:05
Speaker 3: that's right. With a bat, that's not the case at all.
27:08
Speaker 1: No, their tendons are only connected to the upper body.
27:11
Speaker 1: No muscle involve whatsoever.
27:13
Speaker 3: Right, So when they're hanging upside down, their upper body
27:17
Speaker 3: is pulling down on their tendons, which means their claws close. Yeah,
27:22
Speaker 3: under whatever they're hanging from.
27:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it's gravity coupled with just a reaction,
27:29
Speaker 1: like a literally a physical reaction from pulling that bat
27:32
Speaker 1: will make those claws close exactly.
27:34
Speaker 3: So it requires no energy whatsoever.
27:37
Speaker 1: Right or talons, I guess we should say, right, yeah,
27:40
Speaker 1: but it requires no energy none whatsoever.
27:43
Speaker 3: And bats will actually like they'll die in that position sometimes.
27:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. So what they do is they'll fly up to
27:49
Speaker 1: this thing. They will initially clasp it with their claws
27:52
Speaker 1: and then relax, and when they relax, they hang, which
27:56
Speaker 1: makes them clamp down really hard. And like you said,
27:59
Speaker 1: when if they die hanging there, they will stay hanging there.
28:02
Speaker 3: And they can go to sleep. That's where they sleep.
28:04
Speaker 3: So one of the reasons why it's so important that
28:08
Speaker 3: a bat doesn't have to expend any energy while it's
28:10
Speaker 3: upside down is because they're mammals, which means that they
28:13
Speaker 3: are warm blooded, which means that they regulate their own
28:16
Speaker 3: temperature internally, right, Yeah, which requires a lot of energy.
28:22
Speaker 3: That puts bats at a particular disadvantage because they fly
28:26
Speaker 3: and that requires a ton of energy. Mammals are not
28:29
Speaker 3: designed to fly. To generate the energy needed to fly,
28:34
Speaker 3: bats can do it, but to do it, they have
28:37
Speaker 3: to enter what's called a state of torpor every day. Yeah,
28:40
Speaker 3: And basically, while they're hanging upside down, they get super
28:44
Speaker 3: super sleepy, and they get so sleepy that their metabolism
28:49
Speaker 3: starts to slow, and in their internal temperature falls and
28:55
Speaker 3: becomes about an equilibrium with the external temperature. So they
28:59
Speaker 3: go from warm blooded to essentially cold blooded during a
29:04
Speaker 3: single day.
29:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, like David Blaine might, Yes, he was preparing for
29:09
Speaker 1: like some weird stunt. Yeah, they're controlling their own internal
29:13
Speaker 1: temperature and their own metabolic rate.
29:15
Speaker 3: Right. So while they're doing this, when they're metabolism slows,
29:17
Speaker 3: they're using up less energy, which means that they're conserving
29:21
Speaker 3: it for when they fly later on, when they go hunt.
29:24
Speaker 3: That's right, which is pretty awesome.
29:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. They can actually even hibernate some bats, yes, if
29:29
Speaker 1: they're in a region where it calls for it, or
29:32
Speaker 1: they may just do like birds and migrate to warmer climbs.
29:36
Speaker 3: There's a lot of different bats and a lot of
29:39
Speaker 3: different things that bats do.
29:42
Speaker 1: Is that gonna be our little tag maybe this episode?
29:47
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's talk a little bat. It's called
29:51
Speaker 1: this fact in fiction since that's what this section is
29:53
Speaker 1: called in the article. Pretty original. Like we said, there
29:59
Speaker 1: leathery wing in their weird faces and their resemblance to
30:03
Speaker 1: ghouls and demons make them vilified. Yeah, but bats are
30:07
Speaker 1: our friends because they eat tons and tons of insects.
30:11
Speaker 3: Literally tons.
30:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was the stat on that there's twelve hundred
30:16
Speaker 1: mosquitos in an hour one bat?
30:19
Speaker 3: That's a little brown bat in North America. It's the
30:22
Speaker 3: most common North American bat species, twelve hundred mosquitos in
30:25
Speaker 3: an hour, Which you say, who cares? There's trillions and
30:30
Speaker 3: trillions of mosquitoes. It doesn't matter too well. There are
30:33
Speaker 3: a lot of bats, that's right. There's a bat cave
30:36
Speaker 3: in Brocken Cave or Bracken Cave, Texas that has twenty
30:40
Speaker 3: million bats. It's a colony and every night they eat
30:44
Speaker 3: two hundred tons.
30:45
Speaker 1: Of insects two hundred tons.
30:47
Speaker 3: And a lot of those insects are crop ruining insects,
30:50
Speaker 3: So farmers frequently take their hats off and wave to
30:54
Speaker 3: the bats. Hello, Hello, in something of a salute when
30:58
Speaker 3: the bats fly by.
31:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:00
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen a farmer do that to a bat? Yeah,
31:02
Speaker 3: he's really.
31:03
Speaker 1: Be pumping round up in one hand and waving at
31:05
Speaker 1: the fats in the other.
31:06
Speaker 3: You'll bring a little two to your eye.
31:09
Speaker 1: They are plant pollinators, like we said, they will go
31:11
Speaker 1: in and gather nectar, and when they do this they
31:14
Speaker 1: get pollen on their bodies. When they fly away, they
31:17
Speaker 1: spread that pollen. So specifically they're pollinators of bananas, figs, mangoes, cashews,
31:25
Speaker 1: and a gave. So if you are hammered on tequila
31:28
Speaker 1: right now.
31:29
Speaker 3: Thank a bat.
31:29
Speaker 1: Thank a bat.
31:30
Speaker 3: And you mentioned that colony in Texas in Austin.
31:35
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, under the Congress Avenue Bridge, very famous spot
31:41
Speaker 1: to In fact, it's a big tourist attraction.
31:43
Speaker 2: Now.
31:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've embraced so.
31:45
Speaker 3: They're bringing tourist dollars in. Two. They pollinate, they eat
31:48
Speaker 3: pest bugs, and they bring in the tourists.
31:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think some of them are uber drivers as well.
31:56
Speaker 3: This is trying to eke out a living, yep, exactly.
31:59
Speaker 1: What else let's talk about the guano. You know that
32:03
Speaker 1: is it's poop. It's batpoop, and guano is a very
32:08
Speaker 1: rich in nitrogen and is a great fertilizer. And not
32:12
Speaker 1: only that, but at one point the US Army and
32:18
Speaker 1: even further back, the Southern Army, the Confederate Army, I
32:24
Speaker 1: believe they're called, used they collected bat guano to use
32:28
Speaker 1: his gunpowder yea and explosives.
32:30
Speaker 3: They extracted the saltpeter from it.
32:32
Speaker 1: Crazy and I had no idea. Yeah, it actually extended
32:36
Speaker 1: the Civil War because once all their their fortifications were destroyed,
32:41
Speaker 1: they literally went and collected guano from bat caves to
32:44
Speaker 1: keep making bombs, right or not bombs, but gunpowder.
32:48
Speaker 3: And again it is also like a top notch fertilizer
32:50
Speaker 3: that's still in use today, Like you can buy back
32:52
Speaker 3: guano at the average nursery probably and not it wasn't
32:59
Speaker 3: back quano, but burg guano two has been used and
33:02
Speaker 3: wars have been fought over it. It's such an effective,
33:04
Speaker 3: crazy fertilizer and power energy source that. Yeah, it's pretty interesting.
33:10
Speaker 3: So go read fourteen ninety one or fourteen ninety three,
33:14
Speaker 3: I can't remember. Talks about this.
33:17
Speaker 1: You tail on the on the scarier side, though. You
33:20
Speaker 1: did mention vampire bats. Yeah, and they do feed on blood,
33:24
Speaker 1: but this article is keen to point out that they
33:27
Speaker 1: are not bloodthirsty man hunters.
33:30
Speaker 3: They will know they're man's stalkers.
33:32
Speaker 1: They'll eat a cow, and when I say eat a cow,
33:34
Speaker 1: they won't eat a cow. No, the u cow doesn't
33:37
Speaker 1: even You know, it doesn't hurt the cow that.
33:38
Speaker 3: Much, right, No, unless the cow contracts an infection or
33:41
Speaker 3: something from it.
33:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
33:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, vampire bats usually need about one to two tablespoons
33:46
Speaker 3: of blood a night, which it can easily get from
33:48
Speaker 3: a cow without any harm to the cow as far
33:51
Speaker 3: as blood loss goes, right, sure, And the cow typically
33:54
Speaker 3: doesn't even know what's going on because the vampire bats
33:56
Speaker 3: have very sharp teeth. Yeah, that don't really make much
34:01
Speaker 3: of a sensation going in, and the saliva has an
34:04
Speaker 3: anticoagulant in it, so the blood just kind of trickles
34:07
Speaker 3: out and keeps coming and then the vampire bat flies away.
34:12
Speaker 3: What's interesting about them, though, is they don't fly onto you.
34:15
Speaker 3: They fly near you, and then they stalk you on
34:18
Speaker 3: all fours, which makes it super creepy.
34:22
Speaker 1: Even though I love that's a crawling bat with those
34:25
Speaker 1: wings is a little.
34:26
Speaker 3: Creepy coming to suck your blood. Yeah, yeah, oh.
34:29
Speaker 1: No, it's not sucking blood. Remember it's an anticoagulant, so
34:31
Speaker 1: it just opens.
34:33
Speaker 3: Lapping up blood. Apparently. They also have a cool little
34:37
Speaker 3: organ in their nose. It's like a heat sensing organ,
34:41
Speaker 3: so they can find like where the blood is closest
34:43
Speaker 3: to the skin. Then go wow, and then.
34:46
Speaker 1: Go let's talk about reproduction for a second. They reproduce
34:57
Speaker 1: typically only once a year.
34:59
Speaker 3: Oh, bat reproduct.
35:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh you thought it just like us.
35:03
Speaker 3: I thought you're about to sing salt and pepper.
35:08
Speaker 1: They reproduce typically only once a year, and that makes
35:11
Speaker 1: them it's tough. They're some of the least producing mammals
35:15
Speaker 1: in the world.
35:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, they produce one baby a year.
35:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, on average. Some can can reproduce more, Yeah, but not,
35:23
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen that much. They're called pups, which is
35:26
Speaker 1: very cute. A pup weighs twenty five percent of the
35:29
Speaker 1: mother's body weight, which is remarkable.
35:32
Speaker 3: Because they often nurse while the mother's flying around.
35:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that'd be like one hundred and twenty pound
35:37
Speaker 1: woman having a thirty pound baby.
35:39
Speaker 3: Just attached to her while she's flying exactly.
35:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, they live, like we said, in large colonies, and
35:45
Speaker 1: so it's not hard to find a mate. But once
35:48
Speaker 1: the females get pregnant, they tend to form a maternal colony,
35:53
Speaker 1: a maternity colony within the colony. It's pretty neat.
35:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, And apparently bats are very altruistic, Like they've recorded
36:00
Speaker 3: acts of bats going and bringing food back for bats
36:03
Speaker 3: who are sick in the colony. Yeah, that's pretty neat.
36:07
Speaker 3: Pretty you don't find that very often in nature.
36:10
Speaker 1: No, not even with man right in many cases.
36:14
Speaker 2: Yea.
36:15
Speaker 1: So they'll form that little maternity colony, which is super
36:17
Speaker 1: sweet because the men don't really stick around and help
36:19
Speaker 1: raise the young. Evidently they just do their thing and
36:21
Speaker 1: they're gone. And apparently the colonies are men tend to
36:26
Speaker 1: hang out with men, and women tend to hang out
36:28
Speaker 1: with women.
36:28
Speaker 3: Anyway, it's like an eighth grade dance in there.
36:31
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So what happens is that the women care for
36:36
Speaker 1: their offspring for a while, but they don't have a
36:37
Speaker 1: whole lot of time to do it, about six weeks
36:40
Speaker 1: to four months, and then the bat is fully independent
36:43
Speaker 1: and can fly on its own, which is great. And
36:47
Speaker 1: this is the second fact of the podcast to me, Ok,
36:50
Speaker 1: the female bat is so smart they can delay there,
36:56
Speaker 1: They can delay their fertilization based on the best time
37:00
Speaker 1: to have a baby bat. Really yeah, So they can
37:04
Speaker 1: have the sex in the fall and hold that sperm
37:09
Speaker 1: and release the sperm to meet the eggs like six
37:14
Speaker 1: months later in the spring. Wow, isn't that amazing. They've
37:17
Speaker 1: learned to actually control their own cycle.
37:19
Speaker 3: They have some serious willpower.
37:21
Speaker 1: Well, they want to survive, you know. Yeah, they are
37:23
Speaker 1: ultimate survivors.
37:24
Speaker 3: You know, bats have a real problem facing them right now,
37:28
Speaker 3: Chuck with white nose fungus.
37:30
Speaker 1: I know, and this is sort of a well it's
37:33
Speaker 1: not only a threat, but it's a bit of a mystery,
37:34
Speaker 1: isn't it of Like why it's so widespread all of
37:38
Speaker 1: a sudden.
37:38
Speaker 3: Well, it's just spreading like wildfire, in part because bat
37:41
Speaker 3: colonies are so huddled and close together. Sure, from what
37:45
Speaker 3: I understand, it's just the ones that hibernate that are
37:48
Speaker 3: having the problem because this white nose fungus it is
37:52
Speaker 3: like it's a fungus that grows on their nose, and
37:55
Speaker 3: apparently that itch makes the bats that are hibernating wake up,
38:01
Speaker 3: and when they wake up, they're in big trouble because
38:03
Speaker 3: an animal that hibernates has just enough energy store to
38:07
Speaker 3: make it through the hibernation period. If they wake up
38:10
Speaker 3: and blow a bunch of energy, like bringing their metabolism
38:13
Speaker 3: and body heat back up to normal levels, and then
38:15
Speaker 3: try to go back into hibernation, they'll starve to death
38:18
Speaker 3: before the winner's over.
38:20
Speaker 1: Wow.
38:20
Speaker 3: So this white fungus grows on their noses and other parts,
38:24
Speaker 3: but typically on the nose and wakes them up, and
38:26
Speaker 3: then they spend all their energy and end up dying
38:29
Speaker 3: or they die from exposure to these winter temperatures or
38:32
Speaker 3: that kind of thing.
38:33
Speaker 1: That's awful.
38:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, and apparently it is really deadly, like some hibernaculas,
38:38
Speaker 3: which is like a hibernating colony, have like a ninety
38:42
Speaker 3: to one hundred percent mortality rate when white nose fungus
38:46
Speaker 3: gets ahold of them.
38:47
Speaker 1: Holy cow.
38:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a real problem. They don't know how
38:50
Speaker 3: to stop it.
38:51
Speaker 1: Well. Another real problem is in places some parts of
38:54
Speaker 1: South America when there's a rabies fear going around, like
38:59
Speaker 1: an outbreak in the t down, they will bomb a
39:02
Speaker 1: cave full of bats, blow it up. They will blow
39:04
Speaker 1: it up. And let's say there's one hundred thousand bats
39:08
Speaker 1: in there, and zero point five percent of those have rabies,
39:12
Speaker 1: So that's five hundred rabid bats they're killing off one
39:15
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, and then they're like, what's up with all
39:18
Speaker 1: these mosquitos, why do I have malaria?
39:20
Speaker 3: Well, either that or the bats they go after are
39:23
Speaker 3: the ones they can easily find in caves, which are
39:25
Speaker 3: the ones that pollinate. They're not even vampire bats, so
39:28
Speaker 3: they're not getting rabies from them anyway. So they're killing
39:31
Speaker 3: a bunch of bats that aren't spreading rabies at all.
39:33
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, and leaving the ones that actually are.
39:36
Speaker 3: Right, but most pollinating bats don't come into contact with
39:39
Speaker 3: humans exactly. The vampire bats are the ones you would
39:42
Speaker 3: have to really worry about catching rabies from.
39:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
39:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they're not even getting the ones that are
39:46
Speaker 3: spreading the rabies.
39:47
Speaker 1: Just misinformation.
39:49
Speaker 3: There's one more threat from humans that started to come
39:52
Speaker 3: to shape and fruition but didn't fully Back in World
39:55
Speaker 3: War two, did you hear about bat bombs?
39:58
Speaker 1: Nope?
39:59
Speaker 3: So there was a dude in the US who had
40:02
Speaker 3: this great idea, and it was attaching incendiary bombs to
40:07
Speaker 3: bats and then releasing the bats in Japan.
40:10
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good idea.
40:11
Speaker 3: So this guy apparently had the ear of and I've
40:14
Speaker 3: read this in an Atlantic article. This guy had the
40:17
Speaker 3: ear of Eleanor Roosevelt. And it ended up becoming like
40:20
Speaker 3: an army research project that went far enough along that
40:24
Speaker 3: there were mishaps, like an airplane hanger blew up because
40:27
Speaker 3: some bats got released prematurely. A general's car blew up
40:31
Speaker 3: for the same reason. And it almost happened, and then
40:34
Speaker 3: they just dropped it.
40:35
Speaker 1: What did Eleanor Roosevelt have to do with it?
40:38
Speaker 3: Well, she was the first lady at the time.
40:40
Speaker 1: Well, I no, but since when the first ladies not
40:43
Speaker 1: could like work with education and nutrition, like how about bombats?
40:48
Speaker 3: Eleanor Roosevelt definitely was seated at the right hand of
40:53
Speaker 3: the seat of power. She was a sharp lady. Crazy
40:56
Speaker 3: yeah bat bombs.
40:58
Speaker 1: Well, she wasn't that sharp. She thought that was a
41:00
Speaker 1: good idea.
41:01
Speaker 3: I have the impression that she was doing it as
41:04
Speaker 3: a favor, like getting this guy on trade.
41:07
Speaker 1: Sure, the army, the war room.
41:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so that's Eleanor Roosevelt. You got anything else?
41:15
Speaker 1: Nope.
41:16
Speaker 3: If you want to know more about bats, you can
41:18
Speaker 3: type that word into the search bar at HowStuffWorks dot
41:21
Speaker 3: com and again go look up bat eating a banana
41:25
Speaker 3: is so adorable?
41:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, or the little baby bat burritos they have like
41:28
Speaker 1: a nurseries with a bunch of them, like nursing on
41:31
Speaker 1: bottles and wrapped up in little swaddles.
41:33
Speaker 3: So cute, very cute. And since I said adorable, it's
41:36
Speaker 3: time for listener mail.
41:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one of the ten people that
41:43
Speaker 1: saw us perform in Washington Square Park. Oh yeah, the
41:46
Speaker 1: ten yep, So they get in any one of you
41:48
Speaker 1: if you email us, I'll read it on the air.
41:50
Speaker 3: All of them are missing time.
41:54
Speaker 1: Longtime listener and fan. Here guys to introduce my boyfriend
41:56
Speaker 1: to the podcast as well. You saved us many hours
41:59
Speaker 1: of boredom on row trips. Have to say, the recent
42:01
Speaker 1: episode about how Nazis attempted to invade Long Island in
42:04
Speaker 1: Florida was one of my favorites ever. We've got a
42:06
Speaker 1: lot of great response.
42:07
Speaker 2: From that one.
42:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
42:08
Speaker 1: By the way, I lived in New York City for
42:11
Speaker 1: eight years now and spent a lovely summer days on
42:15
Speaker 1: a mag and set beach Ammagansett A jeez, So the
42:23
Speaker 1: thought of a U boat rolling up there and depositing
42:25
Speaker 1: German spies with plans to attack New York is particularly chilling.
42:29
Speaker 1: My boyfriend, I attended your show in Washington Square Park
42:32
Speaker 1: and your big live show in New York City this summer,
42:35
Speaker 1: and the latter is why I'm writing. I felt you
42:37
Speaker 1: should know as a result of the topic you chose
42:40
Speaker 1: for the show, you cost me several nights of kitchen
42:42
Speaker 1: clean up duty. Before the show, we were grabbing drinks
42:44
Speaker 1: next door and decided to make things interesting. With little
42:48
Speaker 1: bet as to what the topic would be. We came
42:50
Speaker 1: up with six possible categories. We thought it could fall
42:53
Speaker 1: into biology, geography, history, physics, current events, and.
42:57
Speaker 3: Political social falling into three of those.
43:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're not going to reveal it here, by
43:03
Speaker 1: the way, people, because we're touring that same.
43:05
Speaker 3: Showy at least one more go around with.
43:07
Speaker 1: In this fall. And so if you have seen the show,
43:10
Speaker 1: we're gonna say this again and again. Don't come again
43:13
Speaker 1: unless you just want to. Yeah, some people, you know,
43:16
Speaker 1: like follow The Grateful Dead or fishing around see the
43:19
Speaker 1: same show.
43:20
Speaker 3: No, they play a different show every night, That's why
43:22
Speaker 3: they follow them around.
43:23
Speaker 1: Well, not completely different every.
43:24
Speaker 3: Night and pretty much different that's impossible. No, I mean,
43:29
Speaker 3: like they play a different show every night.
43:31
Speaker 1: Well, they might alter songs, but there's no they don't
43:33
Speaker 1: have three thousand songs.
43:35
Speaker 3: They have a lot of songs.
43:36
Speaker 1: These people see them hundreds of nights in a row.
43:38
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, Well maybe we have some stuff heads
43:42
Speaker 1: that want to follow us around.
43:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe they're all like driving around in bands.
43:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, we mix our show up a little bit.
43:48
Speaker 3: Sure, all right, I think that's a good public announcement though.
43:52
Speaker 1: Like, yes, what you just did?
43:54
Speaker 2: Thank you?
43:55
Speaker 1: So we scribbled these down on a napkin, did the
43:57
Speaker 1: draft style selection, went back and forth, picking categories at
44:01
Speaker 1: a feeling I was confident with my chances. For the
44:03
Speaker 1: moment you announced the topic, blank, I knew i'd lost.
44:07
Speaker 1: He had political, social, and current events. So that's a
44:12
Speaker 1: bit of a hint. Yes it's not biology anyway, Guys
44:17
Speaker 1: who really enjoyed the live shows and hope you come
44:18
Speaker 1: back to New York soon. And that is from Natalie
44:21
Speaker 1: Breitbach and her boyfriend Hagen.
44:25
Speaker 3: Really yeah, Hogen, h A G A.
44:29
Speaker 1: N Hagen.
44:30
Speaker 3: I work with Hagen, all right.
44:33
Speaker 1: I would say it should be Hagen and if they
44:36
Speaker 1: got married, he should take her last name and be
44:38
Speaker 1: Hogen Breitbach.
44:39
Speaker 3: That's a good one. That's a great name. It sounds
44:42
Speaker 3: like there's umlats all over the place, all over well.
44:46
Speaker 3: If you want to get in touch with us to
44:48
Speaker 3: let us know how great you thought our show is
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44:53
Speaker 3: would like to hear from you. You can tweet to
44:55
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45:03
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45:10
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