Cool Cafe

Bats! Beneficial, Beautiful, Bountiful, but Burdened

Bats! Beneficial, Beautiful, Bountiful, but Burdened

Written by Patricia Faulk, Teen Leader.

Silver-haired bat skeleton
Skeleton of a Silver-haired bat

When dealing with the spooky month of October, bats are always a hot topic button with teens around the country. This perfectly-timed café leapt into the bountiful, beautiful, and burdened bats that are mostly native to our state of North Carolina. Lisa Gates lead the intriguing detailed discussion on the lifestyle of a bat and the different classifications among this vast world. “Bats are the only mammal capable of powered flight. They are able to propel themselves forward by themselves, instead of simply gliding,” she states in the beginning of the café before transitioning into their day-to-day behaviors, which includes echolocation, diets, daily struggles, and more. Depending on their species, bats eat from a variety of food sources and live in caves in specific areas. Each species has their own unique echolocation call, which is a technique used to locate their prey by using echoes and sound waves. While some bats feed on simple organisms like insects, nectar, and fruit, other bat species eat other bats, blood, and fish.

Skull of a vampire bat shown to be about the size of an adult thumb.
Skull of a Vampire bat (see, not so scary.)

Once the engaging basics were covered by Lisa Gates, she turned her presentation towards a more thought-provoking topic about bats. Recently, the bat population in the North America has been flipped upside down by a disease called White Nose Syndrome. The disease is named for the white fungus that collects on an affected bat’s face or body and is thought to be transmitted from bat to bat. It has dramatically decreased multiple bat populations. It causes a decrease in body fat, dehydration, and causes the bat to increase the amount of energy expended during hibernation, which ultimately kills the bats.

The sonogram of Little Brown bats is shown
Sonogram showing the call sequence of a Little Brown bat

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