Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. It has been an eventful one! We started the week off by celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday. Then, on Friday, we said good-bye to President Obama and hello to President Trump. Friday was an especially eventful day for my family because it was also my dog’s anniversary. We celebrated 8 wonderful years with my dog by having a little party for her. She now knows the word “anniversary” and more importantly, she learned “anniversary cake”. And before you say that this doesn’t have anything to do with bats, it does. Just take a look at Ginger’s bat impression… 🙂 And now for the true bats…Since former President Obama was from Illinois, I thought I’d research bats from there. They have 12 bat species in the state. Some of them are the same bat species that we have in Virginia. One of the bats that they have that we don’t is the Southeastern Bat. [Much as we hate to burst our own blogger’s bubble, we DO have Southeastern Myotis in VA–and we have pictures to prove it! –Ed.] The Southeastern Bat has thick fur that is shorter than most fur found on other similar species. The fur has a dark base with a white tip [eh–not so much with the white tips, but dark base fur, yes! –Ed.]. The Southeastern Bat molts towards the end of summer, going from a lighter coat to a darker one. You […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I am excited because I have a long weekend this weekend and next! That’s right, I have Monday and Friday off, so I only have a 3 day week! Isn’t that awesome? I found a really good article about how populations of little brown bats in New York have been stabilizing. I first read an article about this about a month ago, but the article I found this time gives much more information. Apparently, the bats in New York have been able to reduce the amount of the fungus that causes WNS on their skin. So far, only the little brown bats in New York are showing this ability. The bats in Virginia and Illinois haven’t been so lucky, even though WNS was discovered in those states at around the same time as New York. The scientists aren’t sure why the bats in New York have begun to show resistance to the fungus. They think that maybe the bat populations in New York were larger to begin with. This would give them more genetic diversity. More genetic diversity could give them a greater ability to adapt. Scientists don’t know if other bat populations will be able to develop the resistance. They also don’t know if other bat species will be able to adapt. Hopefully the other bats will be able to adapt soon. If you want to read the article, you can find it here. I hope […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. I was a little sad yesterday because we didn’t get any snow. I had been promised some snow and we got absolutely nothing! Of course, I woke up to flurries this morning. It’s pretty, but I doubt they’ll cancel school on Monday because of it. Hopefully the next storm will be a little kinder to FCPS students. I read an interesting article about flower nectar and fruit bats. Scientists from the Humboldt University in Germany were studying why the nectar from plants isn’t as sweet as possible. Apparently, bats would prefer nectar that has 60% sugar, but plants usually have nectar that is only about 20% sugar. The scientist figured out why. They went to the Costa Rican rainforest and worked with wild long-tongued bats. The scientists ran a very interesting experiment using artificial flowers full of sugar water. They changed the concentration of their sugar water depending on computer calculations based on which flowers the bats were visiting. Their experiments showed that nectar that had mid-levels of sweetness attracted the most bats. They say the reason is something called Weber’s Law. Weber’s Law states that our ability to tell the difference between two sensations changes with intensity. They use the example that it is easier to notice a difference in brightness if you add a second lightbulb to a room, but it wouldn’t be as noticeable if you add a lightbulb to a room that already […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. As you all know, we said good-bye to some very memorable people this week. On Tuesday, Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) passed away. Her mother, Debbie Reynolds, passed away the next day. They say she died of a broken heart. It’s very sad. We also said good-bye to a singer, George Michael. He was a famous singer in the 1980s. Since a lot of people are talking about how difficult a year 2016 was, I thought it would be nice to remember the good things that happened. So, while I agree, there were definitely some things that I wish hadn’t happened, there was some good as well… We started the year off with a huge blizzard! I know some of you might not think that is such a glorious thing, but that is because you aren’t in school. If you were in school, you would agree that a blizzard is a fantastically glorious thing to experience. While we were in the midst of the blizzard, we met a beautiful Hoary bat named Blizzard. She stayed with Save Lucy for a while and then, when she was feeling better, she rejoined her friends in the wild. Next, we met Reggie and his friends. These little bats became great stars with their movies, “Very Scary”, “Settle Down”, and “Om Nom Nom”. While we are still waiting to hear what the Oscar committee has to say, these little friends are very […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I am very excited about tomorrow. Tomorrow is an extra special day because both Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah fall on the same day. This is only the 4th time since the year 1900 that this has happened! In honor of this very special occasion, I found an article about a bat research project in Israel. The article is about a study done on how bats communicate with each other. A group of researchers from Tel Aviv University studied Egyptian fruit bats for 75 days. They studied the bats’ squeaks and how the noises affected the bats’ movements. They discovered that when bats make certain noises, the other bats responded in a certain way. They also noticed that bats change their tone when they are talking to members of the opposite gender. The scientists still have a lot of work to do. They would like to find out if the vocalizations are something bats are born with or if they learn them as they grow. I think they should have a look at little Freda. She has been with Save Lucy since she was a very young little pup and she vocalizes quite nicely…and often. If you would like to read more, you can find the article here. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! May this holiday week bring everyone peace, joy and happiness. I hope people are able to […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I am excited that it is finally winter break. Friday was the last day of school until after New Year! I can’t wait for Christmas to come!!! The bats here at Save Lucy are all very excited too. They are looking forward to a yummy holiday meal of mealworms. Maybe they’ll get lucky and get some juicy waxworms too! Since it is almost Christmas, I have been thinking about Santa Claus. And since Santa also goes by the name St. Nicholas, I thought I’d research someone by that name. There was a man named Saint Nicholas who was from a part of Greece that is now part of the southern coast of Turkey. So, in honor of Saint Nicholas, let’s all learn about bats from Greece. Shall we? I found an awesome website that talks about all the bats found on the island of Crete (part of Greece). My favorite is the Mountain Long-eared Bat (Plecotus macrobullaris). It is a rare species of bat that lives all the way from the Alps, to the Balkans and Turkey. It is found in western Greece and in Crete. It was recognized as a separate species in 2003 and hasn’t been studied very much yet. It likes to live in caves found in the mountains. It can live in altitudes all the way up to 2800 meters (almost 9200 feet). The website lists a lot of other kinds of bats […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. It was really cold here in Virginia, but not as bad as some other places. Some people got snow! I hope everyone stayed nice and warm and enjoyed the winter weather. I’m hoping that we’ll get some snow here soon. I love snow days! I have some fabulously wonderful news! I’m going to be included in a book! A very nice children’s book author named Rob Laidlaw is writing a book about bats and bat issues and he wants to include me! I am so excited! Mr. Laidlaw writes children’s non-fiction books that raise awareness about animal issues. He also started a wildlife protection charity in Canada called Zoocheck. This will be his first book about bats, but he has written books about all kinds of other animals. You can find out about his books at http://roblaidlawbooks.com/. I’ve read some of his books and they are all great! I hope you all have a chance to read them too. It takes a long time to write a book, so it won’t be published until next year. It will hopefully be out in Canada next fall. It will take a little longer for it to come out in the US. I can’t wait to read it! Thank you, Mr. Laidlaw! I am honored! And now, I have some wonderful news in the world of bats! Some of you probably already saw this, but it is so important that […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I can’t believe it’s already December. Soon it will be Christmas and Hanukkah and New Year! The bats here at Save Lucy and I are excited about the holidays. And now, the bat news… The Nature Conservancy of Arkansas has just purchased 1,425 acres of forest. It is about two miles west of Mt. Judea in Newton County, AR. The forest has a deep valley, steep land, several streams and caves. The Nature Conservancy and the Buffalo River Foundation are working together to raise money to preserve the forest environment. The really awesome thing about the new nature preserve is that it is home to three protected species of bats. Gray bats, Indiana bats and northern long-eared bats are found there. The Gray and Indiana bats are both endangered and the northern long-eared bats are threatened. So, protecting this land could really help the bats. The land will open to hikers on January 1st, but there won’t be any trails for them to follow. The Nature Conservancy wants to wait a while before it marks hiking trails. If you want to read more, you can find it here.
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week and a very happy Thanksgiving! I thought that since it was Thanksgiving, I should write about what I am thankful for. I’m sure you’ve already guessed it…I am thankful for bats! One bat that I think is really interesting is the Livingstone’s fruit bat. The Livingstone’s fruit bat is a mega-bat that lives on the Indian Ocean islands of Anjouan and Moheli in the Union of the Comoros. The Union of the Comoros is an archipelago island nation off the coast of Africa northwest of Madagascar. The Livingstone’s fruit bat is one of the largest bats in the world. It is about 30 cm (11.8 inches) long and has an average wingspan of 1.4 m (4.6 ft). It has dark brown or black fur and ginger colored hairs on its shoulders. It also has beautiful orange-brown eyes. One of the most interesting things about this bat is that it doesn’t use echolocation. Because of this, it has cute little round ears. Their diet is mainly fruit juice. They squeeze pieces of fruit in their mouths, swallow the juice and then spit out the fruit and seeds. The Livingstone’s fruit bat is endangered. The main threat is deforestation. You can learn more about this amazing bat here.
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, 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. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I had an awesome one! Earlier this week, I got a letter from Senator Warner! That was really exciting. He congratulated me on being a member of Bat Squad. It’s pretty amazing to get a letter from a senator! Senator Warner used to be the governor of VA and I think he likes bats. When he was governor, he designated the Virginia Big Eared bat as our state bat. The Virginia Big Eared bat is an adorable bat with huge ears. Sadly, it is endangered. Not only is Senator Warner an important politician who likes bats, but he is a poet too! You can read his poem here. In other news, there was an earthquake in New Zealand this week. It was a pretty big earthquake that stranded thousands of people. It also brought part of the ocean floor up onto the beach! Because of the earthquake, I thought it would be nice to research bats of New Zealand. It turns out that bats are the only land mammals native to New Zealand and they are in trouble. New Zealand only has two kinds of bats – the long-tailed bat and the lesser short-tailed bat. They had a third kind of bat called the greater short-tailed bat, but it is thought to be extinct. The remaining bats are endangered. The long-tailed bat is closely related to five other species of bats that are found in Australia. They […]