In the Dark!!!

Animals live in the dark! In fact, contrary to other conotations ---life thrives in darkness, whether it be in a cave or in the forest at night. Take the bat, spider and salamander above for example. All three of these animals are cave dwellers. The little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) is a trogloxene ---one who uses caves, but must spend part of its life outside of the cave (to eat!). The cave orb weaver spider (Meta ovalis) is a troglophile ---one who spends its whole life in a cave, but doesn't have to...it could also live outside a cave. And the grotto salamander (Eurycea spelaea) is a troglobite ---one who spends its whole life in a cave, unable to survive outside of it due to having evolved to be so specialized that it can only live in the darkness (notice the skin growing over its eyes and the lack of pigment)!

Unfortuately, whether it is bad press (you know bats can't ditch the vampire stigma) or simply because they look and behave (go about in the dark) so differently than us, some animals ---namely bats and insects--- are met with lots of fear and disgust. Well, I've come to marvel at bats; they are trully phenomenal creatures.

The only mammal capable of flight, bats are found in every continent except Anarctica. Bats are not blind, in fact they see rather well. They have extreemly advanced sonar capabilties (something even our miltary hasn't been able to replicate) which allow them to capture moving insects in the dark. Many bats are insectivores (eat bugs), others eat fruit, and only three species feed on blood (the latter are tropical, smaller than you might imagine, and usually get blood from cows and chickens). Economically, we want bats around... not so much for mosquito control (they will eat some) but for the control of pests on our crops ---they save us billions of dollars we would have had to spend on pest control.

This is a young bat that a bat biologist rescued and now keeps as a pet to bring around and show kids. It is pretty amazing that young bats can recognize their mothers voice and vice versa, even though they are jam-packed in clusters of hundreds of other bats all talking at the same time.
Here, a bat biologist attaches a radio transmitter to the back of a bat. This tool has helped us track these fast flying and nocturnal animals so we can know more about where they like to live. It turns out that in the summer, they roost in large snags (dead trees) or large trees with loose bark. So if you're going to cut down a dead tree, wait until winter!
This is the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus). It is a common bat that inhabits houses in the summer. I took this particular bat's mug in a cave presumed to be a transient cave ---one that it will use as a temporary stop on its way to its hibernacula (the cave it hibernates in).
This male and female Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) decided that this transient cave is as good as any to copulate. Indiana bats are an endangered species (over 95% of their population in Missouri is gone!), thus caves like this transient one become important places to protect in order to help this species survive.
Does this photo help you picture how small bats are? Even the largest bats in North America are only just a little bit bigger than this one. To identify bats in the genus Myotis, we often have to look at anatomical details such as where their wing skin attaches to their foot or the length of their toe hairs. I think this is another little brown, although if the wing membrane attaches to the ankle instead of the toe it would be a gray bat (Myotis grisescens) ---the other endangered bat in Missouri.

Next time you see a bat, allow yourself to trade fear for fasination and appreciation. PLEASE NOTE... never handle bats bare handed; bats do carry rabies (albeit a very small percentage of them). Bat biologists get a preventative rabies vaccine that allows them to handle bats. You don't need to fear though, the only way you can get rabies is to be bit by a rabid animal, and bats do not attack people. Look from afar, and if you must remove one from inside a house, use a coffee can to trap it, slide a piece of cardboard behind the can, carry it outside, and set it on something high so the bat can fly off (they don't take off from the ground too well).

Lastly, a couple videos were made this past month. The first video shows the cave gate I spent two weeks to help build. Bill (my boss) does a good job briefly explaining why we would spend the time and money on a gate! Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/moconservation#g/c/D7C7F0C7995ECF68

Ok so you wanna know what my favorite bat is... it's the AylaBat... truly one-of-a-kind amazing!