Tag science

Do you hear what I hear?

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I am excited that Winter Break is coming soon. Sadly, I have to wait another week to get my vacation. I found a very interesting article on bats regarding their hunting strategies and how they vary from species to species. An international group of biologists set out to compare five different bat species. They studied a total of 94 bats. The scientists fixed each bat with a tiny recording device to look at their flight path and listen to what noises they made. The researchers used this information to discover where the bats found food and whether or not other bats were nearby. They looked at 2 species of bats that hunted socially for prey, such as swarms of insects or fish, who are found in unpredictable locations. Then they looked at three species that foraged for food alone and whose prey was always at the same location and could be found easily. The bats that foraged alone ate things like fruit and tried to separate themselves from others. If other bats were around it could create a competition for food. The bats that foraged together were much more social. The researchers found that these bats tended to eavesdrop on the other bats feeding calls and were constantly communicating with others of their own species to see if they had found food. When one bat found food to eat, others followed close behind and hunted behind them. In order to test if the bats were truly hunting together for the food, the scientists placed three recording devices around where the bats hunted. One recording device played white noise, one played a normal bat call, and one played a bat’s feeding call. When the bats heard the white noise, they mainly ignored the recording. When they heard the normal call they began to investigate, […]

The lovely language of algorithms

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I’m excited because it’s almost Christmas! I found a very interesting article about a group of scientists in Uruguay who are creating a special AI algorithm that will help in identifying bats flying around! This is important because bats in South America speak different dialects than the same species in North America. So, the databases in use in North America don’t work in Uruguay or the rest of South America. This new algorithm will be able to pick up a bat’s call through a microphone and determine which species it is. This algorithm was first created to help scientists learn which bats were flying into windmills. This information could then be used to work with wind farm operators to help protect bats. Studies have shown that more than 40 bat species are affected by windmills and almost 300 mass bat death events have occurred due to wind turbine blades. Until now, scientists needed to catch bats flying in an area in order to identify them. With this algorithm, the very difficult and time-consuming task of catching a bat is no longer necessary. In addition to being used to help scientists protect bats from wind turbines, this algorithm could be used to identify unknown bat species. Hopefully the use of this algorithm will help scientists locate a bat that has been believed extinct in Uruguay for 50 years. If you would like to read more about this study, you can find information here. .

Scorpions, and nectar, and crickets, oh my!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! People in California have been having a hard time. They are having some really bad wildfires again. This week’s blog is dedicated to all the people in California affected by these fires. I found a handsome bat that lives in California called the Pallid Bat. I think I have written about this bat before, but it is so cute that I thought it would be nice to read about them again. This bat also lives in British Columbia all the way down to central Mexico. They also live as far east as western Texas, Oklahoma, and southern Kansas. The Pallid Bat is found in deserts, rocky places, oak and pine forests, and farmland. These bats like to roost in caves, rock crevices, mines, hollow trees, and buildings. These adorable bats have light brown fur with pale white fur on their stomachs. They have special glands on their face, much like the glands of skunks. The glands produce an odor just like a skunk’s too. They use this odor to defend themselves. The Pallid Bat has an amazing adaptation. Unlike most bats, the Pallid Bat does not eat their food while flying. They land and then eat! They swoop down on their pray, and then carry their meal to a safe perch where they can eat it. These bats feast on crickets, beetles, grasshoppers, and scorpions.  Most North American bats aren’t big enough to safely take down a scorpion, but these fluff balls are actually immune to a scorpion’s sting. [And they pollinate cactus! Researchers noted that pallid bats netted near columnar cactus were often covered in pollen, but it was assumed they were picking up pollen while gleaning for insects. Researchers studying the plant interactions of another bat, the nectar […]

One bat, two bat, yellow bat…yellow bat?

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. I have had another nice and relaxing one. As I was looking for batty news, I stumbled upon a really interesting article. A research team in Kenya was studying African Yellow House Bats. There are 21 known species of African Yellow House Bats and the scientists were trying to accurately classify all the species when they made an amazing discovery. They believe they have discovered two new species of these bats! House Bats get their name from the fact that they like to roost in urban environments, but they are still very difficult to catch and study. Scientists knew there were different kinds because, while most of them have distinctive yellow bellies, some have brown or orange ones. Other than that, their physical differences are difficult to distinguish. Using skin samples, scientists analyzed the DNA of 100 bats in Kenya. They compared the samples to the bats in their genetic database and developed an African House Bat family tree. The new family tree helped organize the bats and showed that there are two distinct genetic lineages. Even though it is almost certain that these two bat species are new, researchers still have to show that they exhibit unique features, both physically and behaviorally, before they can officially be classified as new species. If you would like to read more about this exciting news, you can find information here. I hope everyone has a good week. Happy Bastille Day to everyone in France!

Please DO feed the bats!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I am enjoying my summer vacation. I have been sleeping late and relaxing. I’m sure you all remember the hurricanes that hit the Caribbean last year. Hurricanes Irma and Maria did a lot of damage. It has been easy to forget about the hurricanes in the 9 months that have passed, but people living there have been unable to forget. Over 14,000 people in Puerto Rico are still without power. People are still rebuilding their homes. Not only has been difficult for people living there, but it has also been difficult for the animals. Luckily, they are starting to recover. I have some good news about the bats in the US Virgin Islands. Some bat species recovered from the hurricanes relatively quickly. The Pallas Mastiff Bat is one of those species. They feed mainly on insects, so they were able to continue to find food. Fruit bats were not so lucky. The hurricanes took down the trees on the islands destroying the food source for the fruit bats. Renanta Platenberg, a researcher at the University of the Virgin Islands has been studying the bats on the islands for many years. After the hurricanes hit, she and her team went out in search of bats to see how they were doing. It was months before they were able to find any bats. Instead, they saw birds dying of hunger. Then they found out that bats were dying on St. Croix. The hurricanes had destroyed the food source for the three fruit bat species on the island. Ms. Platenberg came up with what I believe was an ingenious way to help the bats. She went on social media and asked people to put bananas and other fruit out for the bats. Thanks […]

Sluuuurrrrppp!!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. It has been a very wet one here in the DC area. It has rained and poured pretty much all week. The plants are all really happy, but I feel sorry for all the little critters. There are some pretty wet looking little squirrels in my neighborhood and I think the little bats must all be soaking too. I hope they are able to dry out soon and fly around to find some yummy little bugs to eat. Meanwhile, I have some batty math news. You know how you learn a lot of stuff in school and you wonder when you’ll ever get to use it? I often feel that way. I mean, when am I ever going to really need to be able to graph an algebraic function in my day to day life? Well, a woman named Alice Nasto has managed to demonstrate a wonderful use of some of the math that she learned in school! It’s a lot of math that I don’t understand, but it proved useful to her. Ms. Nasto is a mechanical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. She was studying hairy structures and how they trap liquids. Since the tongue of a Pallas’ long-tongued bat is covered with long, hair-like structures, she decided to study how this bat’s tongue works. She realized that all the little hairy structures on the bat’s tongue increase the tongue’s surface area. So, there is more space on the tongue for nectar to stick to. Ms. Nasto used a lot of fancy math to discover whether or not the Pallas’ long-tongued bat’s tongue was as efficient as it could be. She and her team of scientists ran experiments with four different models of sample tongues. […]

This April, a little March Sadness

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”5″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow” gallery_width=”600″ gallery_height=”400″ cycle_effect=”fade” cycle_interval=”5″ show_thumbnail_link=”0″ thumbnail_link_text=”Bats of WNS” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″] The images above are white nose species we have hosted at Save Lucy. Not all species are imperiled equally, but all of them, even the more common ones, are in need of conservation action. — Ed. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. Mine started off well because it was Easter. I like Easter! I got to eat a lot of candy and candy makes me happy. Sadly, my wonderful vacation and holiday had to come to an end. I went to school on Tuesday. I had to give a 10-minute speech in my English class on Wednesday. I also had exams. It was awful! Something else happened this week that was even more awful than my suffering. The fungus that causes White Nose Syndrome has been found in two new places. First, it was found in Kansas. Kansas is the 32nd state that the fungus has been found in. Several bats were found to have the disease in Cherokee County in Southeast Kansas and in Barber County in South central Kansas. This news made me very sad. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the fungus has now been found in Central Texas. It was found in the Panhandle of Texas last year and it seems to be spreading. It has now been found in 4 new Texas counties. They found the fungus on cave bats, tri-colored bats, Townsend’s big-eared bats, and on a Mexican free-tailed bat. The detection of the fungus on a Mexican free-tailed bat was particularly worrisome. Scientists don’t think these bats are susceptible to WNS, but since they migrate in such large numbers, they are worried the disease could spread further. If you would like to read […]

The climes, they are a changing

I would like to dedicate this week’s blog to Sudan. Sudan was the world’s last surviving male northern white rhino. He lived in Kenya and was 45 years old. Sudan’s daughter and granddaughter are the last two remaining northern white rhinos in the world. His death brings us closer to a world without these wonderful animals. I would like to thank all the people who were involved in Sudan’s care over the years and those who are still caring for and protecting the two females. Without you, it is possible that this species would have gone extinct years ago. Rest in peace sweet Sudan. We’ll miss you. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. I would like to thank everyone who has encouraged me and commiserated with me while I suffered through a long and virtually snowless winter. I am happy to report that Northern Virginia greeted the beginning of spring with a lovely snowstorm. That’s right! It snowed a whole 4 inches! Do you have any idea what 4 inches of snow does to Fairfax County? It Shuts It Down!!! Everything was closed! I didn’t have to go to school for TWO days! Sadly, the snow melted and I was unjustly forced to go to school on Friday. But, now it is Spring Break and I will get to sleep late for an entire week! While I was home enjoying my snow days, I read an interesting article about bats in Bracken cave. Scientists studying radar measurements for weather surveillance around Bracken cave discovered that Brazilian free-tailed bats are flying north to Texas from Mexico about two weeks earlier than they used to. They also found that more of the bats are staying in Texas through the winter. This research shows that bats can be studied […]

Wings with a view!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! It was an eventful one. The week began with sad news out of Afghanistan. This week’s blog is dedicated to the people of Afghanistan. I hope the injured recover quickly and the people who lost loved ones find peace. My thoughts are with you. We finished off the week with a little groundhog telling us that we were going to have six more weeks of winter. First, I would like to express my sympathies to all the little groundhogs who were woken up from their comfy slumber to predict the weather. Second, I would like to request that Mother Nature listen to the little critter and give us some snow. We really haven’t had a good snow this year and I would like to build a snowman. And now for the bat news! I found a very interesting article about how some bats migrated into South America and Mesoamerica. Usually plants and animals migrate from the continents to islands, and apparently moving from islands to continents is practically unheard of. This is because there are fewer competitors for food and fewer predators on islands. Scientists studying fossil records of Short-faced bats of South America discovered that these bats most likely originally came from the Caribbean islands! From there, they colonized Mesoamerica and South America, where the species now happily lives. Since this is very unusual, scientists wanted to know why. They came up with two explanations. First, the Short-faced bat has a powerful bite. This might have helped them eat foods that other bats couldn’t. This allowed them to have a wider variety of foods that they could eat. Secondly, these bats had amazing wings! Their wings were semi-transparent, which enabled them to see their predators while they hid in […]

And a Happy New Year!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week and a very Merry Christmas! I had an awesome Christmas and I got some really cool presents. I even got a brand new Save Lucy t-shirt! Since this will be my last blog post of the year, I thought it would be nice to look back at everything that happened in 2017. I know a lot of bad things happened in 2017. White Nose Syndrome continued to spread, sadly with no end in sight. There were hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires. More than half of Puerto Rico is still without power. Honestly, it’s been a rough year for a lot of people and a lot of critters. That said, some good things happened too. So, let’s focus on the good…  On January 24, Fiona the Hippo was born at the Cincinnati Zoo. She soon became an international internet sensation bringing joy to millions of people around the world. She is absolutely adorable! A 12 year old Romanian boy risked his life to save the life of a toddler who had become trapped in a pipe. There was a total solar eclipse seen throughout North America on August 21. There won’t be another seen on the continent until 2024. And in bat news, a new bat was discovered roosting in East Devon. The grey long-eared bat is rare to the UK. There are only about 3,000 of them, so this discovery was great news! More good news came out of Europe in 2017. Thanks to Europe’s strict laws protecting bats, it was found that European bats are making a comeback. Many bat populations on the continent have increased by 43% since 1993. And last but not least, Northern Long-Eared bats were found on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts and coastal South Carolina. […]