Stuff You Should Know - How Bats Work

Episode Date: July 30, 2015

They are creepy, sure, but they are also useful, cute and in great danger of extinction. Get a new lease on life from a new view of bats in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren in Nova Scotia who realized she could Airbnb her cozy backyard treehouse and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host.

I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Josh, there's Chuck Bryant. I didn't know we were podcasting about dolphins. That was my bat.

Oh, I thought it was a dolphin. No. No? That was a bat. It was a dolphin running shorts. That has nothing to do with bats and everything to do with Dan Marino. They probably still have those. Dolphin running shorts?

What are you talking about? Yeah, remember the little, like, real runners, they still wear those shorts or maybe it's all spandex now, like super tight. Okay. But they used to be just like a little wispy piece of... But they were called dolphin shorts? Well, I think that was the brand. I wasn't familiar with those.

I remember, but, you know, things were, you know, the right gust of wind could reveal lots of things. Sure. I know what you're talking about. Uh-huh. Like, short shorts. Yeah, runner shorts. Real flimsy ones.

Real satiny, flimsy, wispy. And I think they were dolphin running shorts. And by the way, this podcast is not sponsored by dolphin running shorts. No. It's sponsored by the Bats of America. That's right, which I've always have liked bats, but after reading this, I'm so much more in love with bats. Oh, yeah.

They're neat animals. It's amazing. And not just like... I learned a lot of stuff. I kind of knew about the echolocation and stuff like that. Yeah. Actually, here's my impression of a bat echolocating. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Good, huh? Because humans can't hear it. That's right. I just did it really great. Very nice. Chuck, if you are on the fence, well, not you, because you just stated that you're over the fence, clearly in the bat yard.

Pro bat. Pro bat. Mm-hmm. Me too. Yeah. They never did anything to anybody on purpose, aside from some of them sucking your blood while you sleep. Aside from that.

Super rare. Bats seem to be pretty great animals. And if you're on the fence about bats and you want to go over to the pro bat side, go into YouTube and type in bat eating a banana. That's very cute. It's adorable. Yeah. There's also baby bat burrito videos.

Yeah. They're wrapped up in a blanket, not a tortilla. Yeah. There's a lot of cute bat videos out there, because there's a lot of cute bats. There sure are, my friend. And you might say, no, no, no, I've seen bats. They are as ugly as pure evil gets. Yeah.

You're talking about what are called micro bats, the ones with the crazy nostrils that actually make you me gag. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I think they're cute too. I mean, I get it, because they definitely look like literary ghouls and fiends. But which makes you wonder, I wonder if fiends and ghouls were modeled after those types of bats.

Oh, I'm sure. Oh, OK. I didn't realize it was so obvious. Well, no, I mean, it would have to, because that's a real thing, and they look so much alike. Well, maybe no one had seen a bat. And then they'd make gargles, and they're like, what a coincidence. Or maybe a bat just died at the feet of an artist one day, and he's like, oh man, I've

got to cast this in clay and put it on my front doorstep. I know what you were driving at, though. They are cute in their own really weird uncanny way. Sure. Yeah. But nothing like the Flying Fox. Those are legit cute. No, and actually, this article needs to be updated, man.

So bats are, there's actually, bats are the only flying mammals, we should say. They're very unique animals. Only flying mammals. Wait, what about the penguin? Non-flying and a bird. Oh, OK. It didn't even come close. Gotcha.

Bats are mammals. Yeah. They're closely related to humans than, say, like the fox or the rat or whatever that they're frequently described as being the flying version of. Sure. And there's, I think, something like 1200 species of bats. It's a lot of bat species. And they all belong to the order Chiroptera, which means handwing, which we'll get to.

And then bats typically are subdivided into two sub-orders, and it used to be mega Chiroptera and micro Chiroptera. Is that not right anymore? No. Because science, specifically, like taxonomy, used to be kind of dumb. Sure. It was just based on appearance. Yeah.

And then once the field of genetics came along, they started, like, genetically testing things and realizing that it's not a really good way to categorize things. Like this skunk looks like a raccoon, but they're not the same thing. Right. So maybe they shouldn't be in the same order any longer. Yeah. This is the case with bats. It used to be based on their size, megabats and micro bats, or mega Chiroptera and micro

Chiroptera. Now, because of genetic testing, some of the very small bats are now in the megabat order, sub-order, and vice versa. But those are still sub-orders. They are. But they renamed them to megabats and micro bats. Oh, I got you. But so, for example, the long-tongued fruit bat is considered a megabat, but its wingspan

is only about 10 inches. Right. It's a little thing. Whereas if you look at the flying fox or the fruit bat, Asia, Africa, and Australia, those things are adorable, and they are huge, like six-foot wingspans on some of these bad boys. Yeah. And I mean, I think they're gorgeous.

I know, I think it's the wing just terrifies people. Yeah. Because it looks like a cute little fuzzy fox, and then he goes, whoo, right, and unfolds his wings. And it just, it envelopes you and takes you to hell with it. Well, that's what it evokes, I think, is a cape that something would wrap around you and suck your blood. Yeah.

Like a vampire. Oh, I wonder if vampires were invented independently of bats. What is the cute little guy that- The bumblebee bat? Yeah. I posted a picture of that fella on Facebook today. Just as a teaser, people didn't know that we're going to do an episode on it just to get reactions. And most people are like, oh, that's super cute.

And a lot of people are like, I still wouldn't touch that thing. Well, that's a really good, sensible thing. Like bats might be cute and all that, but they're also enormous reservoirs for diseases. They're like top-notch disease reservoirs for diseases that you and I can catch, like Ebola and rabies. Sure. And they think one of the reasons is because they, and we'll talk about this later, but they're so comfortable with each other, they just huddle together, spreading disease

on one another. Exactly. And epidemic disease didn't take hold among humans until we moved into cities. And even in cities, like we're still not elbow-to-elbow, figuratively we are, but not in reality. Bats are literally elbow-to-elbow in their colonies, so disease just spreads anywhere it wants among them. Yeah. However, about the rabies scare, they are carriers of rabies, but not like people think.

Like, less than one-half of one percent of bats are rabid, one-half point five percent. And you're more, way more likely to get rabies from raccoons and skunks and other rabies. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. That puts an in perspective. Because I like pet any raccoon I see. Maybe I should stop doing that. You should probably stop doing that.

They bite me a lot. Yeah. You should get checked out. Maybe I should. So yes, you said how many species, about 1,200. And aside from varying in size, like you said, just the look of them, like the flying fox looks, like we said, like a little fox has that long snout, looks traditionally like a mammal, has smaller ears, and those little scary-looking guys have those huge ears and

that nose that makes you me gag. So here's the thing, I believe that even that is up in the air now that they've started doing genetic testing. What is? Like that classification based on looks as well. Oh, yeah, sure. It's just bat taxonomy is really up for grabs right now. It's a really exciting time.

Let's say generally speaking then. Okay. One of the other distinctions too typically that divides these two suborders, Chuck, is what they eat. The micro bats tend to be carnivorous. So it includes vampire bats. The vampire bats are not all bats are vampire bats even if they're carnivorous. Most bats just eat insects if they're carnivorous.

Yeah, like mosquitoes. But mega bats, including the big ones with the six foot wingspan, the flying fox I think you said, those are just hippies, they just eat plants. That's it. Like literally nectar and spread pollen. It's pretty great. Like birds, why is that funny? It's pretty great.

Yeah, it is. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about the wing because this is where my learning really started here in researching this. The German word for bats is Fliedermus. I expect to morph from you than that. Yeah. Yeah.

Really? Yeah. Like a metal hat with like a spike coming out of the top. That translates into flying mice. Yes. For the curious. And people will say that because a bat does look kind of like a flying mouse or a flying rodent of some sort.

But like I said, they're much more closely related to humans. Yeah. And you also might think they're like birds because they fly around. Not so. When you look at the wing structure of a bat and a bird, very different. But actually, if you look at a human, if you held your arms out to your side with your elbows bent and your fingers spread and then basically shook your hand, like you were going to do jazz hands.

Right. Exactly. And then imagine that there was a webbed membrane called a, how do you pronounce it, padded gym? Padded gyme. Padded gyme. I don't have one of those too. Those are the wings.

The padgium. The flesh. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. The flesh of the wing. If it was all webbed and connected, that is way more what a bat's wing looks like in functions like than a bird's wing. Right.

So a bird's wing has rigid bones in it, right? Yes. And the muscles that control the wings are located basically at what would amount to your armpits. Yeah, like a socket. So like just do the chicken dance real quick and think about what you're doing. Yes. Right?

You're not, there's not really any movement in the actual arm. It's all at the shoulder joint. Yeah. So there's, with bats, that is not the case. Because they're basically like winged hands, which is the reason their order is named that, right? Yes. They can basically swim through the air.

Yeah. Which allows them to dive bomb and turn and twist and go up and down and go after these insects that can fly really fast, which constitute most of their prey, much more easily and they're much more depth at maneuvering midair than your average bird is. Yes. Absolutely. Like a thousand times. There's no science behind that.

I would say even like 1500 times. Okay. Well, I mean, if we're going without science, let's just say like a million times more. Yeah. A gazillion. They have little thumbs that extend out of the wing in the form of a little small claw. And this is what they use to climb trees. It's really neat how they fly.

I guess we'll go ahead and let the cat out of the bag. They don't have enough lift with their wings to take off like sitting on a branch like a bird. Right. They don't have like strong enough legs to run, run, run, run, run down a runway and take off. So they hang upside down and drop and then start flying. Right.

They have like small withered little legs that they basically drag behind them as they crawl. Yeah. And so that's why they climb trees. They climb up to a high launch point and we'll get to the hanging later because that's super cool too. And then just fall and start flying. Right.

And that's what bats do. That's what bats do. And that's how bats fly. Scientifically speaking, they believe that bats used to not fly and thanks to natural selection, the ones who could leap further and further from tree to tree were more successful and that eventually led to that potassium being formed before you know they could fly. Kind of like lemurs or flying squirrels or something like that. So like one of them was born with an extra skin flap and everyone's like, you freak and

then it flew. Yeah. And they were like, wow. Who's the freak now? Exactly. Look at all these insects I got. So they think that the bat evolved like you said from a tree dwelling mammal, which we likely did as well, which is why we're related to bats most likely.

We share some sort of single common ancestor that dwelt in trees and probably bats evolved somewhere around 100 million years ago is what they believe. But I think the oldest fossils they've found are like 50 million in change. And these fossils that they found in Wyoming show that the wings are there but the ears are not developed, which suggests that flying developed among bats before echolocation did, which has been a long standing debate. Yeah. Did they did echolocation come first, did flying come first, or did they both evolve

at the same time? And it turns out flying was first. Nice. Well, right after this break, we will talk about that echolocation. How about that? Hey friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn?

So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking.

You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop, but just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down.

The situation doesn't look good, there is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Go to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Josh, we talked about the wing structure makes them able to hunt really well, but it's really a one-two punch along with their echolocation or echolocative abilities. I think that's a word. Is that a word?

Yeah. All right. So you can maneuver all day long, but if you can't find your prey, you're just doing a weird dance. Right, exactly. You're just showing off. And the way that bats find their prey, there's a common myth, Chuck, that blind is a bat, that bats can't see.

Absolutely untrue. Most bats have perfectly good vision. Yeah, like exceptional vision even. Yeah. There was a study, some German study, I believe, that found that bats have rods and cones, which means they can see color in the daylight as well as black and white stuff. Sure. Right?

Old movies. Sure. Yeah. Before Ted Turner got his hands on them. Oh, boy. That never went anywhere. It really didn't. But now it's done.

Now Wizard of Oz is gaudy. As gaudy as the Terracotta Army originally was. And now Wizard of Oz always was both, because when they get to Oz, it's color. Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah. Oh, gone with the wind. I think he did colorize that. He did colorize it.

Yes. Okay. Anyway, can you tell it's been a little while since we've done this? No, I think it's great. I can. It's also really hot in here, and it's getting hotter by the second. The more I stall, the hotter it gets. Allow me to continue.

Okay. I'm going to echo locate as well as see. And again, I'm not quite sure I couldn't find this chuck, but I think micro bats might be the only type to echo locate. Oh, really? I don't think all bats do. The reason why is because if you're a hippie pollen eating herbivore bat, you don't need to echo locate your food.

You can just fly around until you run into a flower, you know? Yeah. And smash it and then just like lean over and suck it dry. There's some nectar. Yeah. And if you are seeking flying insects as your prey, then yeah, you better be able to echo locate. And we can actually echo locate.

There's a man who is sightless, who can echo locate, and he's a human being. He is? Yeah. I can't remember what, maybe a men's health article on him. Like this dude just taught himself to echo locate. Did they call him Batman? Probably. Yeah.

I don't remember that much. Well, if you've ever been to a canyon, let's say a Grand Canyon. Okay. Let's say the Grand Canyon, sure. And you boom your voice out there. Please don't say hello or is anyone out there? Those are, you know, come up with something better than that. Better than Pink Floyd lyrics?

No. If it's in that context, then it passes. Okay. Yeah. What would you recommend for an echo? Oh man. What's your go-to echo words? Definitely not echo.

I think echo is great. It's hilarious. Yeah. Hello. You know, I would say, I would say now batting for the New York Yankees. Manimoto. Manimoto. That's what I would do.

You could also do kaka-ka-cha, do the chicken dance. Oh yeah. That'd be good. So whatever you choose to go with, it's your next visit to the canyons. You will hear that echo come back to you and it's basically the same way that bats use except instead of echoing off of a canyon wall. Just echoing off of a mosquito. Sure.

Yeah. Or whatever. Yeah. When you make sound waves and it travels and it hits that canyon wall, it comes back to you, right? Yeah. And bats do the same thing, but like you said, they're bouncing off of a mosquito or some other flighted bug that it eats.

And just from standard echo location, the bat can identify, oh, there's a mosquito there. Like all this other stuff, all the other sound that I just put out there came back at a much slower rate than this little spot did. And that spot is probably a mosquito, but it gets way more detailed than that. Oh yeah. Basically, bats' echo location is picked up and they're still not entirely certain like what kind of receptors the bat has. I mean, it's apparently all oral, but in the bat's brain, it creates what would be about

equivalent to our visual field. Like we see light bouncing off of stuff and I can tell roughly how far away you are and where you are and what position you're facing or what direction you're going, all through light waves. Yeah. And an instant, like we don't have to think about that. Right. Like you see it and it's there.

The bat's not calculating all of this. No. It's just getting this information. Its brain is automatically putting it together in what amounts, again, to like a visual, a visible, visiospatial field. Wow. Right? Uh-huh.

It's a mosquito, it's about this big, it's about yay big, it's traveling at this rate in this direction and it's like right below me and it goes and gets the mosquito. All from rather than picking up light waves, creating a sound wave and listening for its echo. Yeah. That's echo location. It's amazing. And also, I should say, Chuck, it's really good that this is ultrasonic because some

of them go up to like 120 decibels, which is the equivalent of having a smoke detector like a couple inches from your ear. That is not fun. No, it shatter your life. Yeah. All right, so let's talk about the different parts. They will determine the distance of the mosquito by how long it takes that noise to return. You and I could do that with simple math at a canyon.

We could actually calculate how far away that other wall is with math. Even the canyons. Location, they can determine where it is and how big it is and what direction it's moving by literally like if the mosquito sound bounces back and hits the right ear before the left ear and it's going to be the right. That's pretty easy. And then they have all these little complex folds within the ear. It's not just like a big, dumb human ear like we have.

It's the little folds that will help indicate its vertical position as well. So if they know it's coming from above, it'll sound different in the ear than if it's below. Right. And again, to the bat, all this is happening automatically. Its brain is putting all this information together and the bat knows there's a mosquito right below it. That's right. The size is determined by the intensity of the echo.

Something larger will have a more intense echo. So that's a big fat mosquito that just feasted on Josh, so it's got lots of delicious blood. They also use the Doppler effect, Chuck, to determine whether something is going away from it or toward it. That's right. Remember the Doppler effect? I've mentioned it before and got it totally wrong. Let me try again.

It's tough. You ready? Yeah. So the wavelength of something is set. It's determined, right? Yes. But if something is coming near you, that wavelength has to be compressed in a shorter space.

Yes. So therefore, the frequency of the pitch increases. If something's traveling away from you, it has a lot more space between it and you to fill up that same wavelength, the same wavelength. So the frequency of the pitch goes lower. That's the Doppler effect. Right. I think it's the Doppler effect.

Why do I have a feeling you're going to get emailed to people like, Josh, so close. That's not really practical. But there's one more thing. So that is how they determine distance, location, size, direction, amazing. And also the actual sound that they're making when they echolocate. A lot of bats fly around with their mouths open and they look like they're just kind of slack jawed yokels. Yeah.

Well, it turns out they're making their echolocation squeaks the whole time. Again, it's just ultrasonic, which is above the human threshold of hearing, right? Yeah. So it's squeaking the whole time. It's not just sitting there with its mouth agape. And some bats also, especially the micro bats that have the crazy nostrils that make you me gag. Yes.

Those actually will echolocate and generate the sound through their nose. Oh, yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's why they look that way. They're like little speakers. Right. So Chuck, I think we nailed echolocation, don't you?

Oh, yes. And the Doppler effect, maybe? Put that one to bed. And we will talk more about bats, including their little families that they stay in right after this. Hey, friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn?

So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guesthouse of her childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesha Tickler, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking.

You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down.

Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology? It changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chuck.

Yes. So you talked a little bit about bats and how they love to huddle together. And it depends on the kind of bat. The bloodthirsty bats, vampire bats, they actually tend to roost in small little colonies, or solidarily, I believe sometimes, in really hard to reach places. Like the Lost Boys. Yeah. Yeah.

Like your fireplace. Yeah. I had to battle a bat once in a fireplace. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Smoke it out? No. I didn't smoke it out.

I put on a leather coat over another coat, gloves, motorcycle helmet. Dude, I always love how you suit up before you do any battle with nature. Every bat's getting a broom, and I lost. But they'll be by themselves usually. That's a good giveaway that you have encountered, a blood-sucking bat. The hippie herbivore bats, those tend to congregate in enormous colonies. Some often composed of millions of bats. Millions.

Yeah. Pretty amazing. Yeah. Well, you mentioned that they do all this feeding and activity at dawn, dusk, and overnight. Because they will get eaten by hawks and falcons and things during the day, and other predators too. So they like to stay away during the day and hide out, like you said. Yeah.

In caves, dark places, under bridges, we'll talk about Austin in a bit. Hawks don't typically go into caves. They hang out in trees, so bats go off and spend their days sleeping in caves. Upside down. Upside down. And you were saying earlier that you were excited about talking about that, and I understand why. Yeah.

I mean, like I said earlier, the reason they hang upside down is not to look creepy. It's because that's the way that they launch themselves to fly. Right. And when they're sleeping upside down, they're able to sleep. You would think that, well, yeah, if you're like hanging on to something upside down. You get tired. Yeah. You've got to really tense your muscles.

Not with the bats. You would, if you were doing that. This is the fact of the show for me. I think you should take it. Well, you're right. If I was hanging upside down, I would not last very long, because I wouldn't last a second. A, I would be clenched. Well, we couldn't even hang upside down, because we'd be using our hands.

And all the blood would rush to your head too, and you'd just pass out. It'd be really uncomfortable. That's right. But what would happen if we were to try to do that, or like to try to do a pull-up, let's say, is we would, you know, clench our fist around something which contracts muscles, which are attached to your fingers by tendons. It's all one big connection, series of connections, right, to hang on to something, to class something, or to grab that coffee cup.

Exactly. And you're exerting energy by contracting your muscle, right? That's right. With a bat, that's not the case at all. No. These are only connected to the upper body, no muscle involved whatsoever. Right. So, when they're hanging upside down, their upper body is pulling down on their tendons,

which means their claws close onto whatever they're hanging from. Yeah, it's like, it's gravity coupled with just a reaction, like literally a physical reaction from pulling that bat will make those claws close. Exactly. So, it requires no energy whatsoever, right? Or talons, I guess we should say, right? Yeah. But it requires no energy.

None whatsoever. And bats will actually, like, they'll die in that position sometimes. Yeah. So, what they do is they'll fly up to this thing, they will initially clasp it with their claws, and then relax, and when they relax, they hang, which makes them clamp down really hard, and like you said, if they die hanging there, they will stay hanging there. And they can go to sleep. That's where they sleep.

So, one of the reasons why it's so important that a bat doesn't have to expend any energy while it's upside down is because they're mammals, which means that they are warm-blooded, which means that they regulate their own temperature internally, right? Which requires a lot of energy. That puts bats at a particular disadvantage because they fly, and that requires a ton of energy. Mammals are not designed to fly, to generate the energy needed to fly. bats can do it, but to do it, they have to enter what's called a state of torpor every

day. Yeah. And basically, while they're hanging upside down, they get super, super sleepy, and they get so sleepy that their metabolism starts to slow, and their internal temperature falls and becomes about an equilibrium with the external temperature. So, they go from warm-blooded to essentially cold-blooded during a single day. Yeah, like David Blaine might, if he was preparing for some weird stunt, they're controlling their own internal temperature and their own metabolic rate.

Right. So, while they're doing this, when their metabolism slows, they're using up less energy, which means that they're conserving it for when they fly later on when they go hunt, which is pretty awesome. Yeah, they can actually even hibernate some bats if they're in a region where it calls for it, or they may just do like birds and migrate to warmer climes. There's a lot of different bats and a lot of different things that bats do. Is that going to be our little tag, maybe, this episode?

All right, well, let's talk a little bat. It's called as fact and fiction, since that's what this section is called in the article. Yeah, pretty original. Like we said, their leathery wings and their weird faces and their resemblance to ghouls and demons make them vilified, but bats are our friends because they eat tons and tons of insects. Literally tons. Yeah.

What was the stat on that? There is 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour. One bat. That's a little brown bat in North America. It's the most common North American bat species. 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour, which you say, who cares, there's trillions and trillions of mosquitoes. It doesn't matter.

There's a lot of bats, too. Well, there are a lot of bats. That's right. There's a bat cave in Bracken Cave, or Bracken Cave, Texas, that has 20 million bats. It's a colony. And every night they eat 200 tons of insects. 200 tons. And a lot of those insects are crop ruining insects, so farmers frequently take their

hats off and wave to the bats, hello, hello, in something of a salute when the bats fly by. Yeah. Have you ever seen a farmer do that to a bat? Yeah. He's pumping round up in one hand and waving at the bats in the other. Yeah. It'll bring a little tear to your eye.

They are plant pollinators, like we said. They will go in and gather nectar, and when they do this, they get pollen on their bodies. When they fly away, they spread that pollen. So specifically, they're pollinators of bananas, figs, mangoes, cashews, and agave. So if you are hammered on tequila right now. Thank a bat. Thank a bat. And you mentioned that colony in Texas, in Austin, right?

Yeah. Under the Congress Avenue Bridge, very famous spot to, in fact, it's a big tourist attraction now that they've embraced. Yes. So they bring in tourist dollars into it. They pollinate, they eat pest bugs, and they bring in the tourists. Yeah. I think some of them are Uber drivers as well.

They're just trying to eat out of living. Yep. Exactly. What else? Let's talk about the guano. You know what that is. That's poop. That's bat poop.

And guano is a very rich in nitrogen and is a great fertilizer. And not only that, but at one point, the U.S. Army, and even further back, the Southern Army, the Confederate Army, I believe they're called, used, they collected bat guano to use as gunpowder and explosives. They extracted the salt peter from it. Crazy. And had no idea. Yeah.

It actually extended the Civil War, because once all their fortifications were destroyed, they literally went and collected guano from bat caves to keep making bombs. Right. Or not about bombs, but gunpowder. And again, it is also like a top-notch fertilizer that's still in use today. You can buy bat guano at the average nursery, probably. And it wasn't bat guano, but bird guano, too, has been used and wars have been fought over. It's such an effective fertilizer and power energy source that, yeah, it's pretty interesting

but go read 1491 or 1493, I can't remember, talks about this detail. On the scarier side, though, you did mention vampire bats, and they do feed on blood, but this article is keen to point out that they are not bloodthirsty man hunters. They will... No, they're man stalkers. They'll eat a cow. And when I say eat a cow, they won't eat a cow. No, they...

The cow didn't even, you know, it didn't hurt the cow that much, right? No. The cow contracts an infection or something from it. The vampire bats usually need about one to two tablespoons of blood a night, which you can easily get from a cow without any harm to the cow as far as blood loss goes, right? And the cow typically doesn't even know what's going on, because the vampire bats have very sharp teeth that don't really make much of a sensation going in, and the saliva has an anticoagulant in it, so the blood just kind of trickles out and keeps coming, and then

the vampire bat flies away. What's interesting about them, though, is they don't fly onto you. They fly near you, and then they stalk you on all fours, which makes it super creepy. Yeah. Even though I love bats, a crawling bat with those wings is a little creepy. Coming to suck your blood. Yeah. Yeah.

Or, no, it's not sucking blood, remember? It's an anticoagulant, so it just opens up a vein. It's lapping up blood. It laps up blood. Really, they also have a cool little organ in their nose. It's like a heat-sensing organ, so they can find where the blood is closest to the skin. Oh, really? And then go, wow.

And then go, ee, ee, ee. Let's talk about reproduction for a second. They reproduce typically only once a year. Oh, bat reproduction. Yeah. Oh, you thought of it just like us. I thought you're about to sing salt and pepper. They reproduce typically only once a year, and that makes them...

It's tough. They're some of the least producing mammals in the world. Yeah. They produce one baby a year. Yeah. On average, some can reproduce more, but that doesn't happen that much. They're called pups, which is very cute. A pup weighs 25% of the mother's body weight, which is remarkable.

The aia because they often nurse while the mother's flying around. Yeah. So that'd be like a 120-pound woman having a 30-pound baby. Just attached to her while she's flying. Exactly. Yeah. They live, like we said, in large colonies, and so it's not hard to find a mate. But once the females get pregnant, they tend to form a maternal colony, a maternity colony,

within the colony. It's pretty neat. Yeah. And apparently, bats are very altruistic. Like, they've recorded acts of bats going and bringing food back for bats who are sick in the colony. Yeah. That's pretty neat.

That is pretty neat. You don't find that very often in nature. No. Not even with man. Right. In many cases. Yeah. So they'll form that little maternity colony, which is super sweet, because the men don't

really stick around and help raise the young. Evidently, they just do their thing and they're gone. And apparently, the colonies are men tend to hang out with men and women tend to hang out with women anyway. It's like an eighth grade dance in there. Absolutely. So what happens is the women care for their offspring for a while, but they don't have a whole lot of time to do it.

About six weeks to four months, and then the bat is fully independent and can fly on its own, which is great. And this is the second fact of the podcast to me. The female bat is so smart. They can delay their fertilization based on the best time to have a baby bat. Really? Yeah. So they can have the sex in the fall and hold that sperm and release the sperm to meet

the eggs like six months later in the spring. Wow. Isn't that amazing? That is very neat. They've learned to actually control their own cycle. They have some serious willpower. Well, they want to survive, you know? They are ultimate survivors.

You know, bats have a real problem facing them right now, Chuck, with white nose fungus. I know. And this is sort of, well, it's not only a threat, but it's a bit of a mystery, isn't it? Of like why it's so widespread all of a sudden? Well, it's just spreading like wildfire in part because bat colonies are so huddled and close together. From what I understand, it's just the ones that hibernate that are having the problem

because this white nose fungus, it is like a, it's a fungus that grows on their nose. And apparently the itch makes the bats that are hibernating wake up. And when they wake up, they're in big trouble because an animal that hibernates has just enough energy stored to make it through the hibernation period. If they wake up and blow a bunch of energy, like bringing their metabolism and body heat back up to normal levels and then try to go back in the hibernation, they'll starve to death before the winter's over. So this white fungus grows on their noses and other parts, but typically on the nose

and wakes them up and then they spend all their energy and end up dying. Or they die from exposure to these winter temperatures or that kind of thing. That's awful. Yeah. And apparently it is really deadly. Like some hibernaculas, which is like a hibernating colony, have like 90 to 100% mortality rate when white nose fungus gets a whole of them. Really cow.

Yeah. And it's a real problem. They don't know how to stop it. Well, another real problem is in places, uh, some parts of South America, when there's a rabies, um, fear going around like an outbreak in the town, they will bomb a cave full of bats. Blow it up. They will blow it up.

And let's say there's a hundred thousand bats in there and a 0.5% of those have rabies. So that's 500 rabid bats. They're killing off a hundred thousand and then they're like, what's up with all these mosquitoes? Why do I have malaria? Well, either that or the bats, they go after the ones they can easily find in caves, which are the ones that pollinate. They're not even vampire bats, so they're not getting rabies from them anyway.

So they're killing a bunch of bats that aren't spreading rabies at all. Well, I mean, and leaving the ones that actually are, right, but most pollinating bats don't come into contact with humans, the vampire bats are the ones you would have to really worry about catching rabies. So they're not even getting the ones that are spreading the rabies. Just misinformation. There's one more threat from humans that started to come to shape infruition, but didn't fully back in World War II.

Did you hear about bat bombs? Nope. So there was a dude in the U.S. who had this great idea and it was attaching incendiary bombs to bats and then releasing the bats on Japan. That's a pretty good idea. So this guy apparently had the ear of, and I've read this in an Atlantic article, this guy had the ear of Eleanor Roosevelt and it ended up becoming like an army research project that went far enough along that there were mishaps like an airplane hanger blew up because

some bats got released prematurely, a general's car blew up for the same reason, and it almost happened and then they just dropped it. What did Eleanor Roosevelt have to do with it? Well, she was the first lady at the time. Well, I know, but since when the first lady's not could like work with education and nutrition, like when would she like, how about bomb bats? Eleanor Roosevelt definitely was at seated at the right hand of the seat of power. She was a sharp lady.

Crazy. Yeah, bat bombs. Well, she wasn't that sharp. She thought that was a good idea. I have the impression that she was doing it as a favor, like getting this guy on trade to the army. The war room. Yeah.

So that's Eleanor Roosevelt. You got anything else? Nope. If you want to know more about bats, you can type that word into the search bar at housestuffworks.com. Again, go look up bat eating a banana. It's so adorable. Yeah. Or the little baby bat burritos.

They have like nurseries with a bunch of them like nursing on bottles and wrapped up in little swaddles. So cute. Very cute. Once I said adorable, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this one of the 10 people that saw us perform in Washington Square Park. Oh, yeah. The 10.

Yep. So they get in any one of you. If you email us, I'll read it on the here. All of them are missing time. Long time listener and fan here, guys, introduced my boyfriend to the podcast as well. You saved us many hours of boredom on road trips. Have to say the recent episode about how Nazis attempted to invade Long Island of Florida was one of my favorites ever.

We got a lot of great response from that one, by the way. I lived in New York City for eight years now and spent a lovely summer days on a Magginset beach. Amagansett. Amagansett. Jeez. So the thought of a U-boat rolling up there and depositing German spies with plans to attack New York is particularly chilling.

My boyfriend and I attended your show in Washington Square Park and your big live show in New York City this summer, and the latter is why I'm writing, felt you should know as a result of the topic you chose for the show. You cost me several nights of kitchen cleanup duty. Before the show, we were grabbing drinks next door and decided to make things interesting with a little bet as to what the topic would be. We came up with six possible categories. We thought it could fall into biology, geography, history, physics, current events, and political

social. It could have fallen into three of those. Yeah. We're not going to reveal it here, by the way, people, because we're touring that same show. We've got at least one more to go around with. In this fall. And so if you have seen the show, we're going to say this again and again, don't come again

unless you just want to. Yeah. Some people, you know, like follow the Grateful Dead or Fish Around, see the same show. No, they play a different show every night, that's why they follow them around. Well, not completely different every night. Pretty much different. That's impossible. No, I mean like they play a different show every night.

Well they might alter songs, but there's no, they don't have 3,000 songs. They have a lot of songs. These people see them hundreds of nights in a row. Yeah. All right. Well, maybe we have some stuff heads that want to follow us around. Yeah, maybe stuff. They're all like driving around in vans.

Yeah. We mix our show up a little bit. Sure. All right. I think that's a good public announcement, though, like what you just did. So we scribbled these down on napkin, did the draft style selection, went back and forth picking categories, had a feeling I was confident with my chances. For the moment you announced the topic, blank, I knew I'd lost.

He had political, social and current events. So that's a bit of a hint. Yes. It's not biology. Anyway, guys, we really enjoyed the live shows and hope you come back to New York soon. And that is from Natalie Breitbach and her boyfriend, Hagen. Really? Yeah.

Hagen? H-A-G-A-N. Hagen. All right. We'll go with Hagen. All right. I would say it should be Hagen, and if they got married, he should take her last name and be Hagen Breitbach.

That's a good one. It's a great name. It sounds like there's umlats all over the place. All over. Well, if you want to get in touch with us to let us know how great you thought our show is or how excited you are about seeing our show, we would like to hear from you. You can tweet to us at SYSKpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know.

You can send us an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com, and as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. I'm Munga Shatigler, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable

happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Chikis from Chikis and Chill Podcast, and I want to tell you about a really exciting episode. We're going to be talking to Nancy Rodriguez from Netflix's Love is Blind Season 3.

Looking back at your experience, were there any red flags that you think you missed? What I saw as a weakness of his, I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was, whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No.

Listen to Chikis and Chill on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.