Do you know about bats? 🦇

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Speaker 1: I'd like to say a special thank you to William for this week's questions about bats. I would also like to thank Ian Schuma, James, Jay, Steven Elsie, and Druva for sending in questions for our next episodes of sleep Tight Science. You're listening to sleep Tight Science. Did you know a bat can eat as many as two thousand to six thousand insects per night? Wow, that's a lot of bugs. First question, why do bats hunt at night? It is believed that bats hunt at night so that they don't have as much competition from insectivorous birds or birds that feed on insects. Bats are nocturnal, which means that they are active at night. When they leave their roost or where they are sleeping, they usually head to water stream, pond, or lake and open their mouth to get a drink while they are still flying. Then off they go to look for insects. Bats use echolocation to help find their food. Echolocation is when bats make sounds from either their mouths or their noses. These sounds then bounce off of objects and come back and are heard by the bat's sensitive ears. Just using sound, bats can see everything but color the sounds they emit or make can help them to find things as small as mosquitoes, which they love to feed on. The echoes coming back to their ears also help them to know the size and shape of the insect and which way it is going. Bats help us out a lot by eating the insects they're feeding. Helps make the inner sect population or numbers lower, so that they are less annoying to people. Fewer insects means fewer bites or less problems in the garden. My two bats that upside down. Bat ancestors used to live in trees and eat insects that would move on the trees. It was easier for the bats to move down the tree than it was to run up the tree, so they would hang upside down and use their hands and mouths to grab the bugs. This led to the bat's back claws changing so that the cords or tendons in their back legs would lock so that they didn't need to use very much energy. Their very unique body allows them to hang upside down this way because the tendons or cords are connected to their upper body, and to hang upside down, a bat flies into position, pulls its claws open with the other muscles and then finds something to grab onto. When the bat is ready to hold on, they just need to relax their body. The weight of their upper body pulls on the tendons, which causes their claws to grab onto the limb, branch, or whatever, and the bat's weight keeps the claws closed. Because when they're in this position, they use so little energy, it makes sense for bats to sleep this way. They only need to use their energy again to let go of whatever they are holding on to and fly away. If you ever watched a bird take off to fly, they need to get a running start to fight against gravity, but since bats back legs are shorter and thinner now, they cannot stand on their back legs to run, so bats just need to drop or let go and then fall into flight. Being upside down also helps the bats to hide from predators or their enemies. Because bats are sleeping during the day, they are usually in a spot where predators would not think to look for them. These hiding spots are also something they don't have to fight over, as most other flying animals cannot hang upside down. Mardi corona virus has to deal with bats. Scientists have been studying viruses and bats for a long time now and realize that bats have been hosts or carriers of many different viruses throughout the centuries. After the outbreak of SARS severe acute respiratory syndrome in two thousand and three, scientists went out looking for the source or where the virus came from, and they realized it did start in bats and then get passed on to another animal, which then caused it to be passed on to humans. They believe that the same thing happened with COVID nineteen. COVID is a zoonotic disease, which means it is caused by animals and then picked up or passed on to humans. Scientists believe that about eighty percent of viruses are zoonotic. Other viruses from this family of zoonotic viruses have been passed on to humans and usually only give us cold or flu like symptoms. Bats, because of their really strong immune systems, do not usually get sick from these viruses, so they can carry them for a long time and pass it on to other animals who might not be so lucky. Bats have such a strong immune system because they are able to fly. When bats fly, they raise their metabolic rate, or the amount of energy they use so high that it would be harmful to other mammals. Scientists believe that COVID nineteen was bread from bats to humans, but not directly. They believe that one or more other animals had been infected first, and then people got sick from that animal, not the bat. It might have happened when they touched the sick animal or ate it. After people got the virus, it was passed on to other people and it got spread quickly as we know. Scientists say there are some things we can learn from bats. They are not to blame and may actually help to provide a solution. Fun facts about bats. Wow, this is amazing. Scientists have found evidence that bats have been around for fifty million years. That is a very very long time. Bats are definitely not blind, and in fact they can see very well. Bats don't get tangled up in your hair. They're far too smart for that. People often think that you can get sick from bats, but they are in fact very clean and just like cats, groom themselves very well. Bats are not birds. They are actually mammals. The only mammals that can fly. Bats wings are quite complicated and this is what helped them to fly. Their wings are made of two thin layers of skin stretched over the bat's arm and fingers. Yes, they have arms, fore, fingers, and a thumb, and their fingers are very long when you compare them to the size of their body. If our fingers were the same as bats, they would be longer than our legs. The largest bat cave in the world is in Bracken Cave in Texas, and during the summer, this cave can have up to twenty million bats there at once. Bats droppings or poop are called quano, which produces a bacteria that is used to improve soaps and antibiotics. Wow, so when we get sick and the doctor gives us antibiotics, there might be some guano in them. Thank you for listening to this episode of sleep Type Science, where we investigate the questions you have about anything science related. Our podcast starts with a question like did you know, and throughout that episode we will try to answer the question. If you have a question or there is something you would like to know more about, send us your questions or comments at Hello at sleep tightscience dot com. I look forward to hearing from you soon.