AN ISLAND OF DISCOVERIES Madagascar reveals a swarm of new

S OCIAL L EARNING
helps bats find frogs
W W W. B AT C O N . O R G
I SLAND OF D ISCOVERIES
S U M M E R 2007
BATS
B AT C O N S E R VAT I O N I N T E R N AT I O N A L
M AGNETIC B ATS
use a built-in compass
BATS
Vo l um e 2 5, N o. 2 S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
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FEATURES
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Protecting Bats of the Borderlands
by Robert Locke
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How fringe-lipped bats identify tasty frogs
by Rachel Page
10
An Island of Discoveries
John D. Mitchell, Chair
David W. Weaver, Treasurer
Jeff Acopian; Eugenio Clariond Re yes; Scott McVay;
Merlin D. Tuttle.
Eugene L. Ames, Jr.; Anne-Louise Band; Nancy Ha rt e ;
Joan Kelleher; Thomas M. Read; Walter C. Sedgwick;
Patsy St e ves; Ma rc Weinberger.
A d v i s o ry Trustees: Sh a ron R. Forsyth; Elizabeth Ames
Jones; Travis Mathis; Wilhelmina Robertson; Wi l l i a m
Scanlan, Jr.
Verne R. Read, C h a i rman Emeritus
Scientific Advisory Board:
NEWS & NOTES
Members in Action: ‘For the Bats’
Bats in the house
Rainforest pollinators
Blending education and research in Mexico
Member snapshot
The Wish List
Dr. Leslie S. Hall, Dr. Greg Richards, Bruce Thomson,
Australia; Dr. Irina K. Rakhmatulina, Azerbaijan; Dr.
Luis F. Aguirre, B o l i v i a;Dr. Wilson Uieda, Brazil; Dr.
M. Brock Fenton, Ca n a d a;Dr. Jiri Gaisler, Czech
Republic; Dr. Uwe Schmidt, Germany; Dr. Ganapathy
Marimuthu, Dr. Sh a h roukh Mi s t ry, India; Dr. Arnulfo
Moreno, Mexico; Ir. Herman Limpens, Netherlands; Dr.
Armando Rodriguez-Duran, Pu e rto Rico; Dr. Ya-Fu Lee,
Taiwan; Dr. Paul A. Racey, United Kingdom; Dr. De n n y
G. Constantine, Ro b e rt Currie, Dr. Theodore H.
Fleming, Dr. Thomas H. Kunz, Dr. Ga ry F. McCracken,
Dr. Don E. Wilson, United States; Dr. José R. Ochoa G.,
Venezuela.
M e m b e rship Manage r:
COVER PHOTO: A lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) pollinates an
organ pipe cactus along the U.S./Mexico border. Bat Conservation International is
working to protect these and many other international bats of the Borderlands. (See
Page 1.)
© M ERLI N D. TUTTLE , B CI / 81 72 10 1
©MER LIN D . TUT TLE, BC I / 0011553
Merlin D. Tuttle
Executive Committee:
Madagascar reveals a swarm of new bat species
by Steven M. Goodman
15
Founder & Pre s i d e n t: Dr.
Board of Trustees:
Magnetic Bats
Finding their way with a biological compass
by Richard Holland
12
Director of Publications: Ro b e rt Locke
Photo Edito r: Meera Banta
Graphic Art i st: Jason Hu e rt a
Copyeditors: Angela England, Valerie Locke
Amy McCartney
BATS (ISSN 1049-0043) is published quarterly by Bat
C o n s e rvation International, Inc., a nonprofit corporation
s u p p o rted by tax-deductible contributions used for public
education, research and conservation of bats and the ecosystems that depend on them.
© Bat Conservation International, 2007. All rights reserve d .
Bat Conservation International is dedicated to conserving and
restoring bat populations and habitats around the world.
Using nonconfrontational approaches, we educate people
about the ecological and economic values of bats, advance scientific knowledge about bats and the ecosystems that rely on
them and preserve critical bat habitats through win-win solutions that benefit both humans and bats.
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P ROTECTI NG
BATS OF THE
BORDERLANDS
by Robert Locke
B
ats by the millions travel casually
between Mexico and the United
States.
After
wintering
in
Mexico’s milder climate, many
bats, like the Mexican freetails,
migrate northward to hunt
plentiful insects, give birth and
rear young. Others, such as the
nectar-eating lesser long-nosed
bats, follow the flowering of
agave and other desert plants into
the American Southwest. They
return to Mexico in the fall.
Protecting border-crossing bats is especially challenging. A failure on either end of the journey
can have disastrous effects, with severe ecological and economic impacts on
both countries. Only cooperative, binational efforts will succeed.
Vol ume 25, No . 2
SUMMER 2007
1
B AT S
About 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats live in Cueva del Consuelo. Area
officials, with advice and help from BCI and other partners in Mexico, hope
to turn the site into a model for bat conservation and ecotourism.
Previous page: Borderlands Program crews investigate the dramatic Cueva del
Porvenir in Coahuila state. It may once have been among the largest bat
roosts in the world and still is home to some 2 million freetails. a. Moreno,
BCI’s Borderlands Program is aiming a potent mix of
re s e a rch, education and targeted conservation projects at
n o rthern Mexico, while capitalizing on Mexico’s growing scientific expertise and conservation awareness. Lead sponsors and
p a rtners of this vital, continuing effort include the Disney
Wildlife Conservation Fund, The Offield Family Foundation,
FONDO Mexicana, Pronatura Noreste, Instituto Tecnologico
de Cd. Victoria, BCI Trustee Eugenio Clariond Reyes, David
Ga rza Laguera and Don Virgilio Ga rz a .
Two years into the project, much of the foundation has
been laid and initial successes point to great promise for the
future. Borderlands Coordinators Arnulfo Moreno and Cat
Garcia-Kennedy have begun a new, proactive phase that
©ALDO ORTI Z REY ES, BCI / 0041396
Yuma myotis and Mexican free-tailed bats find roosts in Cueva
El Puerto, a northern Mexico cave that’s among dozens that
have been surveyed by the Borderlands Program.
B AT S
2
SUMMER 2007
blends rigorous conservation with economic development at
the local level. We are building alliances across the region to
make community involvement a major part of this effort.
A potential showcase is the protection of Cueva del
Consuelo, a cave that is home to about 1.5 million Mexican
free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) and likely sheltered several times that number in the past. Mayor Roberto Tijerina of
the nearby municipality of Candela, in cooperation with officials of the state of Coahuila, recently signed an agreement
with BCI to work together to manage this important roost,
protect the bats and benefit the community.
The partnership is designed to demonstrate to other
Borderland communities the direct economic value of restoring and protecting major bat caves and to show them how to
achieve those benefits.
La Cueva del Consuelo is located alongside the Candela
River Recreation Area, where camping, swimming and picnicking facilities were built in hopes of attracting much-needed tourist money. Now the community, in conjunction with
Spa Ojo Caliente, is setting up a viewing area where visitors
can watch the Consuelo bats’ dramatic evening emergences.
With plans to promote the area as an ecotourism site, BCI will
offer management advice and provide educational materials.
Moreno also helped develop the concept for a “Guano
Garden” at a primary school in Candela, where teachers will
help children design, plant and care for a garden that demonstrates the benefits of using bat guano – a plentiful resource at
Cueva del Consuelo – to grow fruits, vegetables and flowers.
Guano mining for fertilizer, for both local and commercial
use, is common at major bat caves throughout northern
Mexico. Its obvious economic value can greatly increase local
appreciation of bats. But guano mining without regard for
roosting bats can force colonies to abandon cave roosts – and
Vo lu me 25 , No . 2
end the flow of guano.
BCI’s survey of Borderlands bat populations
found that inappropriate guano mining was a major
cause of declining populations. Borderlands staff educate miners and communities about sustainable guano
h a rvesting through such simple tactics as limiting
underground work to months when bats are not in
residence. The response has been uniformly positive .
During the initial fieldwork, crews worked with
landowners, residents and cavers to identify more
than 250 possible bat roosts in caves, mines and tunnels in northern Mexico. They followed up promising leads with site visits and have now confirmed at
least 144 previously undocumented roosts that, in
the past, may have sheltered tens of millions of bats,
most of them in a handful of major sites.
BCI is documenting the exact locations of each
© MER LIN D . TUTT LE, BC I / 0042872
site, its ownership and approximate past and present To estimate the size of the current bat population in this cave in northern
bat populations, species diversity and current or Mexico, Borderlands field crews measure the area covered by fresh guano
potential threats. And at every stop, program leaders on the cave floor.
educate owners, managers and neighbors about the
Our results suggest that most colonial cave bats of the
values and needs of bats. BCI’s Spanish-language publication,
Murciélagos Cavernícolas del Norte de México (Cave Dwelling region are severely threatened, largely because of disturbance
Bats of Northern Mexico), proved to be an invaluable educa- or damage to their roosts. The most likely culprits, in addition
tional tool. Some 600 copies have been distributed to key peo- to careless guano and mineral mining, are fires, heavy visitation by humans, overgrown vegetation at cave entrances and
ple throughout the Borderlands.
The largest identified colonies were mostly Mexican fre e- misguided attempts to control vampire bats.
In some cases, simply removing vegetation or downed trees
tails, Peters’s ghost-faced bats (Mo rmoops megalophylla), Parnell’s
mustached bat (Pt e ronotus parn e l l i i) and cave myotis (Myotis that block cave access can allow bats to return to an abandoned
velifer). Important colonies of endangered nectar-feeding Mex- roost. While visiting important bat caves, field crews cleare d
ican long-nosed bats (Leptonycteris niva l i s) and Mexican long- the entrances to more than two dozen caves and mines, ensuring safe flight zones for emergences and re-entry. This small
tongued bats (Choeronycteris mexicana) were also discovered.
e f f o rt alone will often allow colonies to
reestablish themselves.
Last summer, Borderlands field crews
discovered what may once have been one
of the world’s largest bat roosts, Cueva del
Porvenir in Coahuila. Moreno, with BCI
Founder Merlin Tuttle and BCI Programs
Director David Waldien, explored the
cave, discovering immense interior chambers and passages with roost stains that
extend more than half a mile (one kilometer) into the cave.
Although many millions of bats clearly
used this cave in the past (and approximately 2 million still do), reliable estimates
are not yet available. The roost stains – 50
to 80 feet (15 to 25 meters) above the cave
floor – are extremely difficult to measure,
and past heavy guano and phosphate mining further complicate analysis. BCI hopes
to send a speleological survey team into
this cave to produce a detailed map and
collect baseline data to help develop longA huge pile of guano-filled bags sits near an entrance to Cueva del Consuelo.The
economics of guano mining for fertilizer provides an incentive for bat conservation in term monitoring and conservation plans.
Mo reno and Ga rc i a - Kennedy, meanMexico, but if done inappropriately, mining can devastate bat colonies.
Vol ume 25, No . 2
SUMMER
2007
3
B AT S
while, have identified 11 critical roosts
that spend summers in Emory Cave.
for special conservation assistance.
Education is fundamental to longIndividual conservation and manageterm conservation success, and BCI’s
ment plans are being developed, with
Borderlands Program has varied initiaimplementation of at least three to
tives under way. BCI recently signed
begin before the end of the ye a r.
an education and conservation agreeConsistent protection of even a few of
ment with Juan Carlos Montoto
the most significant roosts identified
Villareal, General Director of TAMux
by the Borderlands Program could
(Natural History Museum of Tamauhave a dramatic impact on the bats of
lipas). This partnership will give
northern Mexico.
schoolchildren easy access to bat-eduA new Borderlands front is opencation materials and also allow BCI to
ing through a partnership with the Children learn about bats by participating in the reach a broad audience through coopU.S. National Pa rkSe rvice. BCI scien- Pollinator's Journey, part of the education efforts
erative programs at the museum.
tists are trying to better understand a supported by BCI and its Borderlands partners.
Moreno has been a frequent speakpotential migratory route that takes Mexican long-nosed bats er at both scientific and lay gatherings. He has presented batf rom Mexico into Emory Cave at Big Bend National Pa rk in education lectures to more than 2,000 schoolchildren and eduWest Texas.
cators through formal and informal lectures and also appears
Field crews will conduct extensive cave surveys in northern on radio programs and at other public events. Bat-education
Mexico, south of Big Bend, to identify seasonal and migrato- w o rkshops held in Ensenada, Baja California, and Victoria,
ry stopover roosts of this endangered species. This project will Tamaulipas, drew more than 70 primary, secondary and college
complement the work of Biologist Loren Ammerman of students and educators for hands-on conservation activities.
Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, who has been
An educational exhibit with incredible reach opened last
monitoring the approximately 2,500 Mexican long-nosed bats October outside Monterrey, Mexico. Misterios de la Noche
COUR TESY OF PU NTO VERD E CON SULTOR ES
Bats and Education
by Ana Gabriela Robles
exico’s Canyons of Cumbres de Monterrey National
Park takes your breath away. Raw, rugged cliffs rise like
M
skyscrapers 100 feet (30 meters) above your head, framing
the stunning vistas of the Sierra Madre mountains. A sweating band of about a dozen middle-school children and three
instructors, all wearing backpacks, have just hiked for hours
to attain a summit. Now the nervous students are preparing
to descend about 80 feet (25 meters) back down to the
ground in a matter of moments.
Welcome to Outward Bound Mexico. This innovative
“Bats and trails of experiential learning” project was developed by the Punto Verde Consultores of Mexico and BCI’s
Borderlands Project to give bat education a powerful new
twist in the region.
Student Javier Ramos peers over the edge of the cliff
down which he is about to rappel, and his uncertainties are
clear. As he conte m p l ates the harness, ro p es and extensive
security systems, he reviews the basic training he completed
the previous day. Under the watchful eyes of instructors, the
youngsters help each other don their gear and prepare for
the thrilling/frightening drop over the side. An instructor
describes the critical importance of collaboration, not only
on this rocky cliff but among all humans – and in all of nature.
B AT S
4
SUMMER 2007
Middle-school students prepare to rappel down a cliff as part of
their Outward Bound Mexico educational experience, which
blends bats into the outdoor lessons.
One by one, the students step over the edge for the
rapid, bouncing descent, to the cheers of their comrades. As
Javier takes his turn rappelling down the cliff, he notices an
unlikely sight: agaves that somehow found a rare bit of soil
and held on long enough for seeds to germinate and plants
Vo lu me 25 , No . 2
(Mysteries of the Night) at the Bioparque Estrella
environmental-education park allows visitors to
watch a captive colony of Mexican long-nosed
bats as they forage at artificial cactus plants.
The exhibit, which has attracted more than
155,000 visitors, was created by Bi o p a rq u e
owner Don Virgilio Ga rza, BCI Trustee Clariond, Nelly Correa, Diana Ga rza and BCI’s Tu ttle, Mo reno and Science Officer Barbara French.
The cave-like display includes an interactive
educational film that dispels myths about bats
and explains their many benefits for humans. It
demonstrates vividly the importance of these
endangered animals in pollinating desert plants
and gives visitors a rare, up-close look at real bats.
Misterios de la Noche recently won the Mexican © M E R L I N D . T U T T L E , B C I / 0 0 4 2 2 9 7
Horticulture Confederation’s Ecology and En- A Borderlands survey crew, led by Coordinator Arnulfo Moreno (center), moves
vironmental Award.
through a narrow passageway in Antiojo Cave near Monterrey, Mexico.
This unique exhibit, one of the finest of its
kind, will be an important bat-education and conserva t i o n ROBERT LOCKE is BCI’s Director of Publications.
facility for Northern Mexico for years to come, a centerpiece
of the broad activities that the Borderlands Program is under- Your support can help make BCI’s Borderlands Project a more
taking to conserve bats and their habitats throughout this p owe rful tool for protecting international bats along the
d i verse re g i o n.
U.S./Mexico border. Please contact [email protected].
to grow from that vertical wall of rock. Collaborative relationships suddenly start to make more sense to him.
As the excited, successful students gather at the bottom
of the cliff, the instructors guide them in sharing the experience. Javier describes the collaboration he saw between the
agave and the mountain. Diego, one of the instructors,
seizes this educational moment for a story about the Sierra
Madre bats.
“Just so,” Diego tells the students. And so it is with bats
and agaves. Some bats in the Sierra Madre survive by eating
the fresh nectar from the bright, richly scented night blooms
of the agave, and in return for their meal, the bats pollinate
the plants so they can reproduce and thrive. Collaboration
pays off for both animal and plant.
The story of the free-tailed bat is different, Diego continues. These bats are hunters that spend their nights pursuing and eating countless insects that might otherwise
decimate agricultural crops on which humans depend. In
these ways, he says, bats help maintain the delicate balance
of our planet.
This is a lesson that could last a lifetime.
Educators call this “experiential learning,” delivering
information through active participation. Students take part
in activities that help them relate knowledge to experience,
rather than just committing information to memory.
Punto Verde and several local partners spent three years
working with teachers and students to incorporate experiential learning in support of BCI’s conservation efforts in the
Vol ume 25, No . 2
state of Nuevo Léon, Mexico.
In a collaborative project with the State Ministry of
Education, a total of 900 teachers and thousands of students received bat education to counter dangerous myths
and clarify the many benefits of bats. Many of the children
even became advocates in their own communities.
Punto Verde, meanwhile, trained Grupo Imagina (which
works with underprivileged children) and Outward Bound
instructors, created the educational materials and developed strategies for bat-related activities. After the courses,
both groups implemented programs and workshops.
The main objectives of the workshops, organized by
Grupo Imagina, were to generate proposals for improving
their communities, care for the environment and develop
leadership skills. Outward Bound’s program incorporates
bats heavily into its outdoor programs. Bats are presented
as flagship species because of their ecological importance
and the prevalence of misinformation about them.
More than 720 students have already participated in
these programs, learning details of the bats of the Sierra
Madre and how they improve natural and human environments. These young people not only change their perceptions, but they take their knowledge home and share it with
others in their families and communities. Education works.
ANA GABRIELA ROBLES is a member of Punto Verde Consultores,
an interdisciplinary consulting group of Mexican women who provide guidance and training in sustainable development.
SUMMER
2007
5
B AT S
SOCIAL LEARNING
How fringe-lipped bats
identify tasty frogs
by Rachel Page
Fringe-lipped bats hunt a variety of prey, but they
are most noted for feeding on frogs.
I
n trying to decide what to order at a new restaurant, have
you ever scanned nearby tables to see what other diners were
having? That’s about what some foraging bats seem to do
when faced with the smorgasbord of potential prey provided
by a tropical rainforest, except the bats don’t so much look as
listen. In our study of fringe-lipped bats in Panama, we found
that they can learn what’s good to eat by eavesdropping on
successful bat diners.
The fringe-lipped bat (Trachops cirrhosus) feeds on a variety
of prey, from large insects to small vertebrates, and sometimes
even on other bats. But this bat is most noted for feeding on
frogs. Male frogs produce loud, conspicuous advertisement
calls at night to attract potential mates. Fringe-lipped bats use
these calls to find and assess prey. On the basis of the advertisement calls alone, this bat can tell whether a specific frog is
poisonous or edible.
B AT S
6
SUMMER 2007
But how do the bats learn these associations? Are they born
knowing which frog calls mean dinner – and which signal
danger? Or do they learn how to decode the signals over the
course of their lifetimes? Previous experiments, which I conducted with Michael Ryan of the University of Texas at Austin,
show that these bats are extremely flexible and can quickly
learn and relearn associations between prey cues and prey
quality. What we wanted to know next was: Can these associations be transferred from bat to bat by social learning?
To answer this question, we set mist nets near streams and
ponds at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on Barro
Colorado Island, Panama, and brought fringe-lipped bats back
to a large outdoor flight cage for behavioral tests.
We wanted to use a call that the bats would probably never
approach in the wild. We chose the calls of the cane toad (Bufo
marinus). Cane toads, abundant on Barro Colorado Island, are
Vo lu me 25 , No . 2
highly toxic and can weigh ten times as much as a fringelipped bat. So it is extremely unlikely that bats in the wild
would be attracted by the calls of a cane toad.
We first tested each bat for its baseline response to cane
toad calls. None responded.
Then we took a single bat and offered food rewards to calls
that sounded initially like those of the túngara frog, a preferred
prey species, and then progressively morphed, in subsequent
versions, into the calls of a cane toad. To create these “hybrid
calls,” we started with the túngara frog call, then recorded a
low-amplitude cane toad call on top of it. We increased the
amplitude of the toad call in regular increments while decreasing that of the frog call. In a very short time, the bat learned
to respond to pure toad calls.
Next, we put this newly trained bat and an untrained test
bat together in a flight room. We placed a food reward on an
audio speaker and played the toad call. The trained “tutor” bat
flew down to the speaker and retrieved its food reward. Would
the untrained bat follow suit? And if so, how quickly?
To ensure that the bats were not just learning to associate
speaker boxes with food, we concealed them beneath a screen
covered with leaf litter and moved them to a different, random
location for each trial. Then we counted the number of times
the tutor bat retrieved its reward before the test bat learned
that, in this environment, cane toad calls signal palatable prey.
Learning was extremely rapid. On average, it took a test bat
5.3 trials of observing a tutor bat before it, too, responded to
the toad calls by flying to the speaker and collecting the food.
At that point, we removed the tutor bat from the room to
determine whether the test bat had, in fact, learned to associate
the call with prey or was just responding when the tutor did.
When we retested each test bat by itself, we found that they did
indeed associate the calls of a toxic toad with palatable food.
C OU RTES Y OF C ARR IE WEB BER
Rachel Page feeds a captive fringe-lipped bat inside the flight
cage that she used in her research in Panama.
Vol ume 25, No . 2
The author’s research suggests that fringe-lipped bats like this
one learn to differentiate between edible frogs and toxic toads
by noting how other bats respond to the calls of their prey.
To further confirm these results, we tested two control
groups of fringe-lipped bats. We wanted to be sure that what
we interpreted as rapid social learning was not
simply the result of individual trial and error.
To test this possibility, we placed a single bat
in the flight room, positioned a speaker as
before, placed a food reward on it and broadcast toad calls. We repeated this over the
course of five nights for a total of 100 trials or
until the bat learned, whichever came first.
We we re also concerned that perhaps the
presence of more than one bat might somehow
change the bats’ motivation to explore the area
and accelerate their learning rates. To control
for this, we placed two inexperienced bats
together in the flight room, placed a rew a rd on
the speaker and broadcast toad calls. Again, we
presented the toad call up to 100 times.
The results were striking. While the sociallearning group had associated the toad call to
food in an average of 5.3 trials, most of the
bats in the control groups never made the
association, even after 100 trials. Surprisingly,
however, a single bat in each of the control
groups did eventually learn the association, but only after
more than 80 trials. Once we finished our tests, we carefully
SUMMER
2007
7
B AT S
Fringe-lipped bats are social animals that typically
roost in groups of 4 to more than 50 individuals.
reconditioned the bats to avoid toad calls in the wild, then
released each one where we had caught it.
These experiments clearly show that bats can learn socially
from other bats. All that is required is that one bat observe
another foraging. Fringe-lipped bats are social animals that
roost in groups of four to fifty or more individuals. Multiple
bats are often found at foraging sites, such as ponds that host
chorusing frogs. So it is very possible that individuals can
eavesdrop on the foraging activity of other bats, leading to the
transfer of novel behavior from bat to bat.
The fact that one bat learned in each of the control groups
points to the role of exploratory behavior in nature. We clearly show that novel associations between prey cues (the frog
calls) and prey quality (palatability) can spread rapidly from
bat to bat, but these associations must originate somewhere.
Exploratory behavior could be how such novel associations
between cues and prey quality originate in nature.
Our experiments do not tell us how these cues are learned.
B AT S
8
SUMMER 2007
C OUR TESY OF RAC HE L P AGE
Does the test bat actually observe the tutor bat, using echolocation or even vision to follow the bat’s foraging behavior? Is
the test bat alerted to the foraging event by the crashing sound
of the tutor bat landing in the leaf litter to retrieve its prey? Or
does the test bat eavesdrop on the echolocation calls that the
tutor bat produces as it nears its target?
While we did not explicitly test these hypotheses, our
observations point to another possibility. In each of the initial
trials, the test bat did not begin paying attention to the actions
of the tutor bat until it had retrieved the prey, returned to its
perch and started eating. Only after the tutor bat was actually
consuming its prey did the test bat respond with interested ear
motions and head orientation. After that initial response, the
test bat would respond in subsequent trials to the entire
sequence of the tutor bat’s foraging activity.
What specific sensory cues might elicit this initial attention?
When a fringe-lipped bat eats a frog, it consumes the entire
cre a t u re, bones and all. The chewing noises are loud enough to
Vo lu me 25 , No . 2
be heard several meters away, even over the backg round sounds of a night in the rainfore s t .
Could it be that bats key in on the chewing noises of other bats to learn what they can safely eat?
While experiments testing this question are still
under way, pre l i m i n a ry evidence suggests this
may be the case.
So let’s return to our restaurant scene.
Perhaps a better analogy is this: You’re still not
sure what to order, but the lights are too dim to
see what others are eating. So instead of peeking
at their plates, you listen to the noises they
make. If they are “oohing” and “aahing” over
their food, you mimic their foraging behavior:
“Waiter, I’ll have whatever they’re having.” Now
imagine that your choices are not between
mediocre and delicious food, but between dishes that taste good and those that are poisonous.
Those are the conditions facing the fringelipped bat. Survival depends on learning what
other bats are eating with gusto.
RACHEL PAGE is a Ph.D. candidate in Ecology,
Evolution and Behavior at the University of Texas
at Austin. She got her first experience working
with bats by helping BCI Science Officer Barbara
French and Professor George Pollak of the © M E R L I N D . T U T T L E , B C I / 0 0 0 4 2 0 1
University of Texas on a project investigating the With water splashing, a fringe-lipped bat captures a frog, a favored food of the
social communication calls of Mexican free-tailed species. Lessons they learn from other fringe-lipped bats seem to account for a
bats in Austin, Texas.
major part of their ability to identify frogs that can be safely eaten.
The author thanks all the fantastic field assistants who have
helped on this project: D.P. Bethel, M.K. Clark, N. Cooper,
K. Gillies, C. Jones, K. Klymus, E. A. Snider, D. Marks, D.
Temple, A. Shah, C. Sharkey, K. Sheldon, C. Webber and W.
Wohlwend. Her research has been funded by the Smithsonian
Tropical Research Institute, the National Science Foundation,
the American Association of University Women, the American
Society of Mammalogists, the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial
Fund of the American Museum of Natural History, the
P.E.O. Scholar Fund, and the University of Texas at Austin.
Her advisors are M.J. Ryan, E.K.V. Kalko, M. Tuttle and
A.S. Rand.
Rachel Page carefully removes a great fruit bat (Artibeus lituratus) from a mist net in Panama.The bat was released.
Vol ume 25, No . 2
SUMMER
2007
9
B AT S
MAGNETIC BATS
Finding their way with
a biological compass
by Richard Holland
Big brown bats, like these roosting under a wooden bridge, seem
to use a biological magnetic compass to navigate over long distances.
B
ats are uniquely suited to their nocturnal life in the skies. In
addition to vision, they examine the world through echolocation, dodging obstacles and capturing insects on the wing
at high speed. This short-range sonar sends sound waves into
the darkness and analyzes the echoes that bounce back from
anything in their path. Now our research adds to the impressive array of biological tools that bats use to navigate in the
dark: They seem to rely on a magnetic compass to find their
way.
Bats are among many animals that have particles of a magnetic iron oxide called magnetite in their bodies. Magnetite –
confirmed in bats, butterflies, salamanders, dolphins, honeybees, birds (including homing pigeons), humans and others –
is often proposed as a source of direction-finding abilities.
The mechanism by which it operates is unclear.
Our experiments at Princeton University in New Jersey
demonstrated that artificially shifting the Earth’s magnetic This captured big brown bat has a radio transmitter attached to its
field alters the homing behavior of big brown bats (Eptesicus back and is ready to join a field experiment that tests the bats’
fuscus) in generally predictable ways, indicating that these direction-finding abilities.
bats use an internal magnetic compass of some kind to navigate at a distance.
My colleagues in this study included Kasper Thorup of the Zoological Museum and Center
for Macroecology at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark); Maarten Vonhof of Western
B AT S
10
SUMMER 2007
Vo lu me 25 , No . 2
Michigan University; William Cochran of the Illinois Natural
History Survey; and Martin Wikelski of Princeton University.
Bats leave their roosts each evening and spend much of the
night hunting prey. While big brown bats might restrict their
foraging to a few miles, species such as the Mexican free-tailed
bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) can range 50 miles (80 kilometers)
or more. In addition, many bats are migratory. Most species
travel less than 300 miles (480 kilometers) between summer
and winter habitat, although a few migrate more than 1,000
miles (1,600 kilometers).
The big brown bats we studied fly relatively short distances
but seem to use the same mechanism as migratory birds that
fly across continents. We captured big browns on various
nights at their roost in a barn at a Princeton University field
station and kept them overnight.
Ten bats were exposed to artificial magnetic fields. Each
bat was confined in a transparent container and placed inside
a device called a Helmholtz coil, which produces a uniform
magnetic field. The bats were exposed to the field for 45 minutes before sunset and 45 minutes after, and they had a clear
view of the setting sun and the horizon during this time.
For five of the test bats, the magnetic field was shifted
clockwise by 90 degrees with respect to the magnetic north
pole; for the other five, it was shifted counterclockwise. A control group of five bats was not exposed to any non-natural
magnetic field.
We took each bat, individually and on separate nights
(with two exceptions), 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of their
home roost, attached a tiny radio transmitter and released it.
The bats were tracked by radio receivers aboard a small aircraft
flown by Wikelski until they either returned to the roost or
stopped moving for more than one hour.
The five control bats, relying on the natural magnetic field,
correctly headed south and easily found their way home –
demonstrating a predictable homing response to which the
test bats could be compared.
Bats exposed to the artificial fields took off in wrong dire ctions. Those exposed to the counterclockwise magnetic field
flew west, while those that experienced a clockwise field flew
east. In other words, they flew in the direction that should have
been south on the basis of the magnetic field they experienced
CO U RTES Y OF RI CH AR D HO LLA ND
Big brown bats roosting in this barn at a Princeton University
field station were captured and exposed to artificial magnetic
fields, then released to try finding their way back to the roost.
at sunset. This behavior strongly indicates the bats we re using an
internal magnetic compass that was calibrated at sunset.
The story, howe ve r, seems a bit more complex than that.
Fi ve of the misdirected bats we re unable to find their home
roost (and we retrieved them). The other five test bats, howe ver, somehow re a l i zed they we re off track and figured out how to
make it back home. They either recalibrated their internal compass or used some other cues to correct their navigation.
Such course corrections have not been reported previously
in bats, although homing pigeons can identify and correct
induced errors in their flight direction.
More research is needed to better understand the details of
how bats and many other wide-ranging animals find their way
across landscapes near and far. The radiotelemetry signals collected aboard aircraft in this study could also be sent to loworbiting satellites – a possibility that could open new vistas for
field research.
RICHARD HOLLAND, of the Institute of Integrative and
Comparative Biology at the University of Leeds in the United
Kingdom, is a visiting Marie Curie Research Fellow at Princeton
University in New Jersey.
his battered Oldsmobile with the antenna rising from the roof was the support vehicle for our bat-tracking aircraft. It was, of course, christened the “Batmobile.” It drew
T
many a strange look and quite a bit of police attention, especially when the bats decided to perch in a tree at an upscale New Jersey estate.
We also nearly ran afoul of post-9/11 security at the Princeton Airport. After a night
of radiotracking, we were waiting at the airport for our plane to land, when a police car
arrived and we were bathed in its spotlight. Being naive foreigners (I’m British and
Kasper Thorup is Danish), we jumped out of the car to ask what the problem was. The
officer cited a report of suspicious activity at the airport. We explained at some length
that we were waiting for a guy to land an airplane so we could find out where our bat
had gone. It took some convincing, but after he had examined my Princeton University
ID and carefully checked the car, the policeman finally radioed: “Okay, stand down.”
COUR TESY OF RIC HA RD H OLLAN D
Vol ume 25, No . 2
SUMMER
2007
11
B AT S
AN ISLAND OF DISCOVERIES
Madagascar reveals
a swarm of new bat species
by Steven M. Goodman
M
adagascar, an island nation off the southeast coast of Africa, teems with unique animals and plants, and a recent surge in scientific attention is producing a flood of new
species. Seven bat species previously unknown to science have been described in just the
past three years.
Slightly larger than California, Madagascar is Earth’s fourth-largest island. It broke
free of the African continent about 140 million years ago and split from India 88 million
years ago. An exotic suite of flora and fauna emerged as evolution worked in complete
isolation. Small primates called lemurs, for example, are found nowhere else, and at least
50 lemur species inhabit the island.
Bat Conservation International has been supporting research and conservation in
Madagascar since 1993, when it provided a Student Research Scholarship for a study of
flying foxes’ contribution to reseeding the island’s forests, which had shrunk by more than
80 percent during the 20th century. Since then, nine other BCI scholarships have helped
pay for vital research, while two BCI Global Grassroots Conservation Fund grants supported innovative public education and conservation work.
Very little was known about the bats of Madagascar until 1967, when the late
Randolph Peterson and colleagues from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto launched
a major study. Working mostly along the few passable roads, they obtained a wealth of
B AT S
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SUMMER 2007
Above: Madagascar is most famous
for its exotic lemurs.
Top: Steven Goodman examines a
Madagascar straw-colored fruit bat
(Eidolon dupreanum).
Vo lu me 25 , No . 2
new information and listed 27 species of bats, many of them
found only on Madagascar. These results were published in
1995, after Peterson’s death, in collaboration with Judith Eger
and Lorelie Mitchell.
In collaboration with World Wildlife Fund-Madagascar,
our research has been building on that and other pioneering
surveys for nearly two decades. We have been conducting
large-scale, multi-disciplinary inventories of Madagascar’s varied biota with teams of ornithologists, herpetologists, mammalogists, entomologists, botanists and other scientists. They
work directly with Malagasy graduate students, who collect
and analyze the survey data for their theses and scientific publications. BCI is helping to support portions of our fieldwork.
We have surveyed extremely remote areas, where the only
way in can sometimes require a hike of several days with a phalanx of 20 to 30 porters who help carry equipment, food and
gear. A less-strenuous journey might involve several days of
hard driving in four-wheel-drive vehicles over nonexistent
roads, through deep mud and across rivers. As of this past
spring, we had visited nearly 400 sites, mostly in poorly studied or virtually unexamined areas. An incredible number of
new species have been discovered, including lemurs, rodents,
shrew-like tenrecs and, of course, bats. Probably no other area
of similar size, except the Philippines, boasts so many recently
described mammal species.
Bats were added to these surveys in the late 1990s, partly
to complete the small-mammal inventory. Also, at about the
same time, scientists associated with the Un i versity of
Aberdeen (in the United Kingdom) launched a research program focused on Madagascar bats, beginning with fruit bats,
then expanding to the complete bat fauna.
Our results have been exceptional. As of this past March,
37 bat species are now confirmed for Madagascar, and 26 of
them are found only on the island. Of the 10 species added to
the list since the work of Peterson and colleagues, seven that
are new to science have been described since 2004.
We are currently developing descriptions of several other
previously undescribed bat species, and we estimate that
Madagascar and its surrounding islands are home to at least 45
species. We base this impressive species increase on sufficient
samples from enough localities to confidently differentiate
separate species from variation within a species. Additionally,
molecular analyses provided powerful insights into the differentiation of populations.
An especially notable result of our research greatly expanded knowledge of the remarkable sucker-footed bats (family
Myzopodidae), which had been considered a single rare
endemic species. These bats have sucker-like structures on
their wrists and ankles that allow them to scramble up smooth
surfaces such as large leaves. They are found only on
Ma d a g a s c a r, although several species of Central/South
American disc-winged bats (family Thyropteridae) independently evolved similar leaf-climbing features.
Our sur veys clearly revealed that, at least in eastern
Madagascar marshes where the broadleaf plant Ravenala
grows, the known sucker-footed species (Myzopoda aurita) is
not as rare as had been believed. During BCI’s 2005 Founder’s
Circle Expedition to Madagascar, we had the great pleasure of
Vol ume 25, No . 2
Madagascar’s sucker-footed bat has suction cups on its feet and
wrists that let it scramble up and down slick leaves. A new
species of sucker-footed bat was discovered on the giant island.
capturing eight of these bats in just a few minutes and showing BCI Founder Merlin Tuttle a family of bats he had not
previously handled, let alone photographed.
Armed with new information about the habitat favo red by
this genus, re s e a rchers visited are a s of western Madagascar with
similar plants and features and soon discove red an undescribed
species of My zo p o d a. In early 2007, the animal was named
Myzopoda schliemanni,or Schliemann’s sucker-footed bat.
One of the daintiest of our new species is a tiny member of
the genus Emballonura. It weighs less than five grams (about
the weight of a U.S. nickel). This genus, represented by E.
atrata, was very poorly known on the island. Madagascar has
a moist tropical forest on its eastern side and dry forests in the
west, and it became clear to us that these sharply different
zones did not hold the same species of Emballonura. We knew
we had two species and one of them was new to science, but
our problem was determining which was which.
The description of E. atrata, written in 1874, gives the
locality as “aus dem Innern von Madagascar” (“in the interior
of Madagascar”). That’s a bit vague for our needs, so we visited Berlin, Germany, to examine the type specimen (the preserved animal originally used to describe the species) in the
Museum für Naturkunde at Humboldt Universität. That
promptly resolved the issue: Our western bat was named
Emballonura tiavato in late 2006. The species name means
“rock-dwelling” in Malagasy.
We also developed a fascinating collection of pipistre l l e s .
SUMMER
2007
13
B AT S
Bats of
Madagascar
Peter’s wrinkle-lipped bat
Mormopterus jugularis
During a BCI Founder’s Circle ecotour of Madagascar, BCI
Founder Merlin Tuttle fascinated local children by displaying a
bat he had just caught in a mist net.The trip helped encourage
bat conservation in the island nation.
Peterson and colleagues had re p o rted only a
single specimen of this almost globally widespread genus on Madagascar, and they could
not identify it. Howe ve r, we captured many
pipistrelles at numerous locations. A taxo n o mic study led by Paul Bates at the Harrison Zo ological Museum outside London determined
that these bats re p resented at least six different
species of pipistrelles, including one new to science. It was named Pi p i s t rellus ra c e y i, or Racey’s
pipistrelle bat, in honor of Paul Racey of the
Un i versity of Ab e rdeen (a BCI Science
Advisor). As a measure of how little is know n
about Malagasy bats, the descriptive animal for
this new species was collected in the wall of an
occupied house near a village hospital.
Despite enormous progress in identifying
and understanding the bats of Madagascar,
much remains to be learned about their ecology and natural history. Most of it no doubt will
be learned by a small, but growing troop of
homegrown scientists. There are now more
than 15 Malagasy students and researchers
interested in studying the bats of their island.
This research is helping to push bats firmly
onto the conservation agenda of Madagascar,
due largely to the efforts of two Malagasy nonprofit organizations: Vahatra and Madagasikara
Voakajy. The latter group grew from the work of
University of Aberdeen researchers. The future
of bat conservation in this fascinating island
nation is definitely improving.
STEVEN M. GOODMAN, Senior Field
Biologist at the Field Museum of Natural History
in Chicago, Illinois, is one of the co-founding
members of Vahatra, and for nearly 15 years
coordinated a project for WWF-Madagascar in
An t a n a n a r i vo. A new species of lemur,
Microcebus lehilahytsara, bears the common
name Goodman’s mouse lemur in his honor, and
lehilahytsara is the Malagasy word for “good
m a n .” In 2006, Goodman was named a
MacArthur Fellow.
This research was funded in part by Bat Conservation International, the
Field Museum of Na t u ral Histo ry, the John D. and Cath e rine T.
MacArthur Foundation, the National Geographic Society, The National
Speleological Society, the Volkswagen Foundation, and WWF.
B AT S
14
SUMMER 2007
Sucker-footed bat
Myzopoda aurita
Ra c ey’s pipistrelle bat
Pipistrellus raceyi
Grandidier's trident bat
Triaenops auritus
(New species, 2006)
Emballonura tiavato
Vo lu me 25 , No . 2
M E M B E R S
I N
A C T I O N
‘For the Bats’
Hal L. Black, a Professor of Zoology at Brigham Young University
in Provo, Utah, likes to share his fascination with bats with his
college students – and with those who are a bit younger. Here he
describes a few of those experiences:
Like many of you, I have been invited to classrooms of former students (especially elementary education majors) to do
my song-and-dance routine on the wonders of the bat world.
Sometimes the feedback from grade-school children is downright fun.
Recently, after sharing a photo of a tube-nosed fruit bat
(Nyctimene major), I asked the students what an animal with a
nose like that (it is aptly described by its common name)
should be called. Answers varied from “jelly-roll nose” to “pipe
nose.” Then a child suggested that it looked like a party favor,
the kind you blow on and it uncurls. When I asked again what
we should call it, a 6-year-old girl on the front row said without hesitation: “A party animal.”
That answer re-emphasized the absolute joy of feedback
from students and audiences with, and from, whom we are
fortunate to learn. We need to appreciate how others perceive
the animals we study. Often, the sense of wonder comes
through. I have heard echolocation calls described as “shining
needle points of sound.” Other favorites refer to bats as “pieces
of night’s ceiling [that] came loose” and “tattered remains of
darkness left behind as night lifts.”
On a recent essay exam, I asked students to define a bat.
What would I get from these non-biology majors? Many of
the answers were well done, but one stood out. It was a poem
written for the first time during the exam by junior English
major Jennifer Diffley. It was called “For the Bats.”
“What a blessing to be blind by night / And feel the soft
velvet of dark,” she wrote. She said bats “ride with the moonlight.” They “sing a song of guidance” and “make one’s voice a
freeway through the sky.”
She went on to say that words sung by the Phantom of the
Opera could describe the magic of bats: “Night unfurls its
splendor.” I think she has heard “the music of the night.”
At such times, I am renewed in my determination to continue spending some of my professional time away from campus, out among the decision-makers of the future, helping
them understand one segment of biodiversity.
I challenge everyone to remain steadfast in your educational endeavors, wherever they are applied. In the words of
Sara Teasdale, “Life has loveliness to sell.” Let's continue to
peddle it.
You can read Jennifer Diffley’s ‘For the Bats’ poem and
other essays and poetry by BCI members and supporters
on our website: www.batcon.org. Click “Get Involved”
and go to “Bats in the Arts.”
Bats in the house
CI receives more requests for public information about bats
have slipped into homes and other buildings than any
B that
other topic. And most of those telephone calls wind up with
our resident expert, Science Officer Barbara French, who
also lectures on the topic to groups ranging from public
health officials and veterinarians to police officers.
As part of those lectures, French recently developed a
short video (about 101⁄2 minutes) that demonstrates exactly
how to capture and remove wayward bats from homes
without harming the bat or yourself. It also shows likely
entrance points for bats and offers tips on how to exclude
bats and keep them from returning.
This video may be viewed, free, on BCI’s website at
www.batcon.org/binb/. In addition to the video, you’ll also find
lots of other valuable information about dealing with unwelcome
bats that venture indoors.
Vol ume 25, No . 2
SUMMER
2007
15
B AT S
N E W S
A N D
N O T E S
Rainforest pollinators
he New World tropics are among the most diverse ecosysT
tems on Earth, and an amazing number of bat species play
vital roles in preserving the health of these fast-disappearing
forests. Some of the most important are the nectar-feeding
bats that pollinate hundreds of rainforest plant species. Yet
remarkably little is known about the symbiotic relationships
between individual bat and plant species, how bats respond to
seasonal changes in resources and the impact of human-caused
landscape changes on these interactions.
Cullen Geiselman, a Columbia University graduate student, is working in the dense forests of French Guiana to begin
filling some of those gaps in scientific knowledge. Bat Conservation International and the U.S. Forest Se rvice International
Programs supported her Ph.D. research through a BCI/U.S.
Forest Se rvice Bats in International Forestry Scholarship.
Geiselman’s work is crucial to effectively focusing future
conservation efforts, especially as tropical forests are incre a s i n gly cleared and fragmented. Knowing which plants are most
needed by which bats – and vice versa – can greatly improve the
protection of bats, plants and habitat in fragmented forests.
In the past year, Geiselman netted bats in both wet and dry
seasons at the new Nouragues Forest Reserve, a 385-squaremile (1,000-square-kilometer) preserve of lowland rainforest.
She captured 135 bats of three nectivorous species: Geoffroy’s
long-nosed bat (Anoura geoffroyi), chestnut long-tongued bat
(Li o n ycteris spurre l l i) and T h o m a s’ long-tongued bat
(Lonchophylla thomasi).
Pollen was collected from the snout of each bat. The bats
were also kept for up to two hours in numbered cloth bags to
collect fecal samples that we re later examined for pollen, insect
p a rts and seeds. The bats we re then identified, measured and
released.
To identify the bat-borne pollen, and thus the plants being
pollinated, she collected pollen from 93 flowering plant
species in the reserve. Though not all the pollen has been identified yet, the most common pollen found on the bats so far
came from Eperua falcate (in the dry season), a tree known as
the Wallaba and used for shingles and other construction
materials; Lecythis poiteaui, a member of the Brazil-nut family
(in the rainy season); and Inga trees, with commercially valuable flowers (in wet months).
Preliminary results included at least one surprise: Pollen
from one species (Psittacanthus acinarius) of a plant family pollinated primarily by hummingbirds and not known to be visited by bats was found in the fur and feces of Geoffroy’s longnosed bats during the rainy season. This discovery of a new
bat-pollinated species, genus and family highlights the importance of considering all flowering plants – not just those of
typical types and forms – as potential food sources for nectareating bats. Geiselman predicts many more species will be
added to the list of bat-pollinated plants as she and others shed
B AT S
16
SUMMER 2007
COUR TESY OF PATR IC K CH ATELE T
BCI/U.S. Forest Service Scholar Cullen Geiselman of
Columbia University, who’s doing research in French
Guiana, feeds a captured bat before releasing it.
new light on the complex web of bat/plant interactions.
Her continuing fieldwork and laboratory analyses are
beginning to tease out details and test hypotheses about how
these similar nectar-bat species can successfully coexist in the
same habitat. She suspects that in the dry season, when flowers are abundant, the bat species mostly tap the same floral
resources, while their diets diverge during wet months, when
blooms are more limited. Geiselman found, for example, that
while Geoffroy’s long-nosed bats were busily pollinating P. acinarius, no pollen was found on chestnut long-tongued bats.
They were eating only insects during the wet season.
She hopes to solve these and other puzzles about these bats
and flowers as she continues her research.
Help BCI support the research and conservation work of young
scientists like Cullen Geiselman around the world. Contact
[email protected].
Vo lu me 25 , No . 2
N E W S
A N D
Blending education
and research in Mexico
imberly Wi l l i a m s - Guillén, a
K
Postdoctoral Fellow at the
Un i versity of Michigan’s School
of Natural Re s o u rces in Ann
Arbor, is using a BCI North
American Bat Conserva t i o n
Fund grant in southern Me x i c o.
She’s studying the impact of coffee plantations on bats and bat
c o n s e rvation, as well as the benefits that insectivo rous bats provide to coffee farmers. She also
p a rticipated in last ye a r’s BCI
Bat Conservation and Management Workshop in Kentucky.
In addition to her important research, Williams-Guillén is
spreading the bat-conservation message to schoolchildren, including
these youngsters, in the state of Chiapas. Armed with bilingual BCI
educational materials, she said, “We had a big batfest at my main
study site. We gave a presentation about bats at the local school,
then helped the kids make their own posters about Important Bat
Facts. That evening, we showed two Spanish-language films for the
students and their parents and did a demonstration capture so the
kids could see real bats and how we catch them. Then we all had
juice and cookies. Everyone had a great time!”
Help support BCI’s North American Bat Conservation Fund:
[email protected]
B CI Member Snapshots
hen your yo u n g ste rs sta rt
thinking about dressing up
for Halloween this ye a r, you
might consider copying th i s
Mexican fre e - tailed bat costume that Emily Kerr wo re for
t ri ck- o r-treating last year. It
was made by her grandmother, says Mom Jill Ke rr of Tyl e r,
Texas. Emily, age 7, is enamo red of bats. Her requ e sted
b i rthday gift last year was a
trip to BatFe st in Au stin,
Texas, home of the famous
bats of the Congress Avenue Bridge. (This
year’s BatFe st is September 1-2.)
W
Share a snapshot of your bat activities with your fellow members: Send it to Ro b e rt Locke, Bat Conservation International,
PO Box 162603, Austin, TX, 78716.
Vol ume 25, No . 2
N O T E S
WISH LIST
The
Your help with any of these special needs will directly improve
BCI’s ability to protect bats and bat habitats. To contribute, or for
more information, contact BCI’s De p a rtment of De velopment at
(512) 327-9721 or [email protected].
Taking Conservation To Iran
Bats are little known and less appre c i a ted in
I ran, although at least 39 species have been
reported in the country. Wi th essentially no info rmation on abundance or dist ribution, population
t rends are impossible to estimate. Anecdotal evidence, howeve r, sugge sts very serious declines
in recent decades. During a 1968 mammal-collecting expedition, for example, a villager
brought two burlap bags containing 1, 5 97 bats
of th ree species, saying he had simp ly swe pt the
bags over a huge colony of bats in a certa i n
cave. A 2001 visit to that cave found only a few
h u n d red bats. Mozafar Shari fi of Ira n’s Razi
Un i versity Center for Env i ro n m e n tal Studies in
I ran plans to spend a year wo rking at Boston
Un i versity with prominent bat biologist Thomas
Kunz to develop an unprecedented “Conservation
Action Plan” for Mehely ’s horseshoe bats in Iran.
He re quests a BCI Global Gra s s ro ots Conservation Fund grant of $3,500.
Cold-countryBat Houses
Bat houses are spectacularly successful in
many areas of the United States and other
countries, but hosting bats in the north country
of Canada and Alaska presents daunting challenges. The need is there, but conventional bathouse designs can rarely overcome the cool,
variable temperatures. BCI’s Bat House Project
is working with Genivar, a prominent environmental engineering firm, to develop new materials and designs that offer the thermal properties bats require in northern latitudes. $5,000 is
needed to fund this research.
Chainsaws for Bracken
Re storing the nearly 700 acres of BCI’s
B ra cken Bat Cave & Na t u re Re s e rve is tough on
tools. Countless inva s i ve junipers must be
c l e a red to help return this part of the Texas Hill
Country to the oak- studded savannas that supp o rted a profusion of wildlife befo re the coming
of civilization. Our crews wo rking at Bra cken
need two 14 - i n ch Echo chainsaws to continue
their battle aga i n st invasive plants. Each saw,
w i th a spare bar and chain, costs $365.
SUMMER
2007
17
B AT S
P.O. Box 162603
Austin, TX 78716-2603 U.S.A.
ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED
NO N P ROFIT ORG .
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PAID
AUST I N, TEXAS
PERMIT NO .
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