Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a very Happy New Year! I thought you all might want to know about the last little bat Save Lucy got in 2015. It is a big brown bat that was brought in on December 28. It was rescued from a storage unit and was in very bad shape. Its left eye is damaged and the left side of its face is hurt. It also holds its tail in a funny position, so something might be wrong with its tail or back. When it first got to Save Lucy, it was very dehydrated and near death. The rehabilitator had to work quickly to save the little bat. Because it was so badly hurt and sick, the rehabilitator could only do a quick exam before beginning to take care of the bat. During the exam, it was decided that Save Lucy now had a new little boy among its patients. They named him Lemmy after the lead singer of a band called Motorhead. The singer passed away the same day that little Lemmy the bat was rescued, so it seemed like a perfect tribute. I got to meet little Lemmy the bat on the 30th. He was still very sick, but was feeling a little better than he had been a couple of days before. I got to watch him eat some very tasty mush and drink some water out of a syringe. Little Lemmy did not appreciate his human caretaker very much and I […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years Hi everyone! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! The bats at Save Lucy definitely did. They loved all of their presents. They got mealworms, mealworms and more mealworms! There were some very cute pictures on the Save Lucy Facebook page of some very festive bats. One of them was even eating a yummy mealworm candy cane. Honestly, can you think of anything tastier? For this week’s blog, I wanted to write about a festive and batty Christmas story. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find one. It seems no one has written a festive Christmas story that involves bats!!! We might have to do something about that. So, anyway, I found an interesting article about bats…not Christmassy, but still interesting because it is about bats. Scientists in Israel did some experiments with bats and found out that they produce longer and louder calls when there are a lot of other bats around. You know how when you are in a crowded room and there are a lot of people talking, you start talking louder? It looks like bats do the same thing. I thought that was pretty cool. You can read the article here. I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season! I hope everyone has a very Happy New Year! Next time you hear from me it will be 2016!!!
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I did because it was the last week before a nice long break from school! I hope everyone has a wonderful winter break! As I am sure everyone knows, the new Star Wars movie came out Thursday! This lucky girl is going to go see it today! I thought it would be funny to look up pictures of Yoda dressed as a bat. I didn’t really find one, but I found a great new Yoda-ish bat. Well, it’s new to me, but it was discovered back in 2011. The Nyctimene tube-nosed fruit bat was found in Papua New Guinea. A lot of other animals were discovered during the same survey that found these bats. Scientists found more than 200 new plant and animal species! The Nyctimene tube-nosed fruit bat is the one that interests me right now because it looks a little bit like Yoda! Check out the pictures. You can see for yourself, the little guy looks a little like Master Yoda, don’t you think? Handsome he is, hmm? If you want to see more about the survey, you can read the article here. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. Since it’s Hanukkah, I thought it would be nice to research Israeli bats. Don’t worry, I’m still keeping my promise to little Freda. I just haven’t found the perfect “sponsor candidate.” I’ll let everyone know as soon as I have someone in mind. So, the first thing I learned about Israel and bats is that there are a lot of them! Apparently, every part of Israel has bats living there! They have 33 different kinds of bats! I think that’s amazing because Israel isn’t really a huge country. It’s about the size of New Jersey. They have one kind of fruit bat and 32 different kinds of insectivore bats. I read an old article about Israel’s bats. The article was written last summer and was telling people about Israel’s Bat Night celebration. Apparently, people in Israel (just like here) sometimes think that bats aren’t the most awesome creatures out there, so the Israel Nature and Parks Authority uses Bat Night as an opportunity to teach people about all the amazing things that bats do for us. So, if any of you will be in Israel during the last weekend of August, they seem to have a pretty cool Bat Night celebration. You can read about it here. After I found out that Israel has so many different kinds of bats, I thought it would be nice to do a little more research. What I learned is really amazing! Scientist have discovered […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. I found something that I think is really cool. Little Freda is excited about it too. You remember little Freda. She’s the one who is still looking for a celebrity sponsor. Someone is really sad that a certain comedian didn’t respond. But, that’s a story for another day. Today, we talk about airport screening! Now, I know what you’re all thinking. How could airport screening possibly be “really cool?” Well, it’s really cool because the scientists that came up with the electromagnetic detectors that airports use modeled them after the echolocation of bats. They modeled it specifically after the echolocation of Brazilian free-tailed bats. That’s the part that little Freda is excited about. As you all know, bats use echolocation to sense where objects (like yummy moths) are. Airports use the same sort of thing to see if people are hiding things under their clothes. The scanners use acoustic cameras that use a similar technique to a bat’s radar to see through clothing. You can read about it here. Now, about that other topic that we mentioned a little earlier. Freda really wants a sponsor. She is insanely jealous of the little Australian fruit bat and wants a sponsor of her own. If anyone out there has any ideas of who would want to sponsor a bat, please leave a message in the comment section below or on Save Lucy’s Facebook page. I promised little Freda that I would spend the […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving! In honor of Thanksgiving, I said last week that I would write about a bat from Turkey. I did some research and I found a very cute bat! It’s called the Bechstein’s Bat. The Bechstein’s Bat is hard to find. It likes to roost in holes that are made by woodpeckers or in rock and tree crevices. The bat lives all over Europe, including Turkey. It is mostly found in the United Kingdom though. The Bechstein’s Bat is a very sneaky little bat. The sound that it makes for echolocation is very hard for its prey and predators to hear. It’s also hard for humans to detect it with their radar equipment. Being so quiet is a big advantage for the bat because it is able to sneak up on its prey without being detected. This helps the bat find yummy moths, spiders, flies, mosquitoes and beetles. The bat eats so much that it is close to the top of the forest food chain. This bat is small. He is only 4.3 – 5.3 cm (1.68 – 2.09 in) long and weighs 7 – 14 g (.25 – .49 oz). Its wingspan is 25 – 35 cm (9.84 – 13.78 in). Its back is light brown and its stomach is pale grey to white. The Bechstein’s bat’s ears are small compared to some other bats’, but they are still pretty big. I think they are adorable. If you want to read […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. I thought we should all take this time to learn another interesting Vampire Bat fact. I know that a lot of people are scared of vampire bats. I just want you all to know that these bats are actually very friendly and sweet with each other. Sure, they have a rather strange diet, but that is just our opinion. They probably think our diet is weird. That doesn’t make them scary. So, in an effort to show everyone just how wonderful all bats are, including the poor misunderstood vampire bat, here is this week’s interesting bat fact: Vampire bats share blood! As you all know, they drink blood. What I didn’t know is that if one of their roost-mates is hungry, a vampire bat will share blood with it! A scientist at the University of Maryland has been studying vampire bats for many years. He says that the bats will share regurgitated blood with their roost-mates. Apparently, a vampire bat will approach a friend who is hungry and offer it food. The scientists have noticed that bats who share the most blood will be offered the most if they are hungry later. The scientist says that it is evidence that bats are generous and their behavior might ensure that they will get fed if they are hungry one time. If you want to read the article that I read, you can find it here. So, I think we should all learn […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Today’s blog is dedicated to the people of Paris, France. I hope the injured are able to recover quickly and that the people who lost loved ones find peace. I am told that Paris is a wonderful city and I hope the people who live there feel safe again soon. Hi everyone! After yesterday’s news, I thought it would be nice to research some nice French bats. I went online and found some really cute ones. One of them is the Lesser mouse-eared bat (Myotis blythii). This adorable little bat has soft brown fur that is lighter on its underside and head. They have a very long tail. Lesser mouse-eared bats like to roost in caves and buildings. They love roosting in church steeples and bell towers. One thing that makes the Lesser mouse-eared bat so special is how it can hover to catch its prey. It will hover in tightening circles until it finds its prey. Then it hovers behind the insect and plucks it off blades of grass. You can read more about the Lesser mouse-eared bat here. Another bat that lives in France is the European free-tailed bat (Tadarida teniotis). This is obviously Freda’s favorite French bat. She thinks they are cousins. They might be, but they definitely have a lot of differences. The European free-tailed bat is one of the largest bats in Europe. They have large forward-pointing ears that curl inward at the edges and they have the cutest long wrinkled muzzle. I think they look […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I hope you enjoyed your Halloween and got lots and lots of candy! The bats all enjoyed their Halloween bugs. I read an interesting article about WNS. Some of you might have already seen this news, but for those of you who didn’t, scientists have found the fungus that causes WNS in Chinese bats. Until now, scientists had only found the fungus in Europe and North America. As you all know, it is killing bats here in North America. Bats in Europe seem to have developed some sort of immunity to it. The fungus, P. destructans, doesn’t seem to be killing Chinese bats either. The scientists think that the fungus has been in Europe and China for tens of thousands of years. During that time, bats that live in those areas have developed some immunity to the fungus. The problem is that our bats don’t have tens of thousands of years to develop immunity. Hopefully the researchers will be able to figure out how the foreign bats are immune to the fungus. If they can figure that out, maybe, just maybe, they’ll be able to find a cure. I hope they do because our bats need help. You can read all about it here.