Tag baby bats

Running hot and cold: Good for some, not so good for others

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good week. I had a great one. The reason it was so awesome was because I had a “snow day” on Monday. That’s right, they cancelled school for the day because there was a possibility of freezing rain! I got to sleep in and watch TV. ? And do you know what makes that snow day even better? Thanks to that day, I will not need to go to school for an entire 5 day week at all in January!!! That’s right. There are “teacher work days” scheduled for the end of the month. Personally, I believe I could get used to this sort of thing. And now for the bat news…It is not good news. If fact, it is very sad news. As you all know, Australia is experiencing summer while we are experiencing winter. On the 7th, a very bad heatwave hit south eastern Australia. This is causing a lot of the flying-foxes to die of extreme heat exposure. The temperatures in Australia have hit record highs of 42-43 degrees C. For those of us in the US, that translates to 107-109 degrees F. In Sydney, the temperature got as high as 45 degrees C (113 degrees F). The poor bats can’t handle that kind of heat combined with the high humidity. As soon as they noticed the bats dying, volunteers began monitoring the bat colonies in Campbelltown, Parramatta Park, Yarramuni, South Creek, and Emu Plains. Bats were dying by the hundreds and volunteers raced to help those who could be saved. Volunteers rushed more than 40 young flying-foxes into critical care. Sadly, they were unable to save them all. Another day, volunteers braved the heat to save hundreds of little pups who have been rehydrated and reunited with their […]

Hmm, that’s an interesting accent…

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I had a lot of fun at the Botanic Gardens last weekend. It was so much fun talking to everyone about bats. A lot of people came by and the bats loved all the attention they were getting. They also liked all the juicy mealworms that they got to eat. A few days ago, Save Lucy shared an article. I thought it was really interesting. The article was about how bat pups pick up bat dialects. A team of scientists wanted to know if bats could pick up other bats’ dialects when introduced to them. They raised 14 little bat pups with their mothers. The bats were all from different colonies. The scientists played three subsets of recordings of natural bat sounds. This continued until the pups were adults. Since the pups were raised with their mothers, they learned to speak like she did, but with the introduction of other bat dialects via the speakers, they also learned how to speak in the dialect the speaker was playing. Isn’t that cool? Until this study, scientists thought humans were the only ones who could pick up different dialects. People have different accents and dialects depending on where they are from. Over time, people learn how to copy others’ accents or to drop their own accents in order to communicate. If you would like to read the article, you can find it here. And now for a public service announcement or two… Daylight Savings time ends tomorrow. Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour. Also, Election Day is Tuesday. Don’t forget to vote. The little bats are counting on their human friends to do all the voting for them. Sadly, bats aren’t allowed to vote. I hope you all have […]