Share it! Science : bats
Showing posts with label bats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bats. Show all posts

Batty About Bats!

bats white-nose syndrome banana cure
bat photo by PD-USGov [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Did you know this week was Bat Week? Often we associate bats with Halloween. I can agree that having one accidentally find its way into your house can be a little creepy and possibly disconcerting, but in general they are fascinating and important animals. There are many learning opportunities when you study bats. From their habits, bone structure, adaptations and roles in an ecosystem there are many science topics to explore.


You can also use these winged-mammals to teach about current events in science. Bats have been in the news the past few years due to the mysterious White-nose syndrome (WNS) that has plagued some important bat species and puzzled scientists. Since WNS emerged about 10 years ago, an estimated 5.7 million bats have died. As bats are an important part of many food webs continued mortality could have a huge impact on the structure of many natural ecosystems.

I recently came across a very exciting and hopeful story concerning a possible preventative for WNS.  Bats in Missouri were successfully treated with a bacterium that releases fungus killing Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and then released. The culprit of WNS is a fungus that grows in fuzzy white clumps on the bats face, hence the "white-nose" name. The most interesting part of this story is that the cure came from research in something completely different- bananas!

little brown bat white nose syndrome WNS
Little Brown Bat with WNS. By Marvin Moriarty/USFWS [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Researchers were studying ways to prolong the ripening process in fruits that are shipped long distances before they are consumed. They found that the bacterium R. rhodochrous delayed ripening, but also prevented fungus from developing. A light bulb went off for a graduate student working on this study, and researchers got to work on seeing if this could also aid in preventing bat death as a result of WNS. Although it is not a cure for WNS, it can help to prevent it from spreading or becoming worse. There are many ways you can become informed and prevent the spread of WNS too. Check out this website to find out more.

What else can we learn from bats? Check out the articles, resources, lesson ideas and book selections below to help you teach and learn about these fascinating animals.

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Some Book Suggestions (affiliate links): 

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Jam Masters

    
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     As most of us know bats use their excellent sense of hearing and a system of echolocation to navigate and find food. Bats are not blind, however, they have poor vision and are active during the night, so they must depend on methods other than sight to maneuver and hunt. Echolocation is a method where an animal emits a sound, and then the echo of that sound bounces back to the animal. They can then determine the distance of an object based on the echo. Bats, dolphins, whales and shrews use echolocation.
     A bat's ability to hone in on very small objects, such as insects, is amazing. In a paper recently published in Science there is evidence that bats are not only excellent at hunting this way, but the Mexican free-tailed bat is also able to thwart their competition from catching their food through sound. These bats "jam" another bat's echolocation so that they are 85.9% less likely to catch their prey. When a hunting bat is approaching its prey the echos become more frequent, creating what is referred to as the "feeding buzz". If another bat detects this feeding buzz, it emits very quick clicking sounds that "jam" the hunting bat's signal, thus causing it to just barely miss its prey. 

     
It is thought that this must improve the signal jammer's ability to catch more food, but this has yet to be tested. Thus far the Mexican free-tailed bat is the only bat known to do this.
     The use of echolocation and the ability to pinpoint such small objects is incredible. In addition to creatures in the animal world using this tactic it was recently determined that blind people may have the ability to use a form of echolocation to navigate as well. Researchers from the University of Southampton's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (UK)  and the University of Cyprus completed studies with blind and sighted test subjects to see how they could navigate using echos and clicks. This phenomena does not necessarily have to do with lack of sight, it involves the quality of one's hearing as well. National Geographic's Brain Games recently explored this phenomena as well. See it in action here. Pretty awesome! It makes you wonder how many other things humans and animals are capable of that have yet to be discovered.

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Echolocation Resources and Activities










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