Page 13 - Vampire Bat News Today

Reversed. they are using their wings as a built-in blanket. >> he has been part of a larger movement taking place, teaching people why the creatures should be protected and not feared. >> we are all here for one purpose and target and direction. that is to help the animals and to help people understand why the animals need our assistance. they are so much like us. they are different looking and colors and sizes and shapes, different importances and jobs they do. i keep going back to that is what...

Morning. >> we do everything we can to ensure the safety and well being of the animals and we have a basic set of samples we correct. oral swabs, fecal pellets, blood. and we take measurements. >> over the course of eight months, they sampled caves all over southern china and then took them back to the lab. >> it really took better part of eight years of consistent and persistent sampling, testing different horseshoe bat populations around, until we finally found the missing link we were looking...

>> the smallest bat in the world, it is this tiny thing in thailand that weighs less than a penny. the biggest bat in the world has more than a six-foot wing span. there is a bat that lives in the cloud forests of ecuador that has the longest tongue of any mammal. this thing has a tongue that is 1 1/2 times the length of its body. if you stick your arm straight out in front of and you imagine your tongue could touch your fingers, it is three times that long so it can get into a flower to pollina...

But in the southeastern parts of the united states, in particular, texas, theres an abundance of one species. the mexican free tail bat. that bracken cave outside san antonio is believed to be home to the single largest colony of bats in the world. >> every year during the spring and summer, i think there are something like 30 million bats in the cave. >> in the cave? >> in the cave. in the summer. there are so many bats that the local weather stations use their doppler radar. they can see the c...

Then they make a little divot with their front teeth, and they put their jaw up against that hole and they lick and drink and pee. it is completely creepy. who else does that? >> ill tell you who else. a serial killer does that. however, vampire bats dont kill their victims. they just act like a mammal sized parasite. ive heard you say that the weirdness of bats was scientifically interesting to you. >> the faces of bats is a perfect example of that. if you take a bat that has a weird flap on it...

Theyre similar to humans. so bats have four limbs, two of them are attached to the wings. >> two of them are the wings. >> okay. >> yes. they have all the same bones that humans do. the upper arm, the forearms, the wrist bones, and then the bones that support the end of the wing are long finger and hand bones. >> bats living and eating habits vary widely across the 1,421 species that exist. there are some that roost in trees, others in leaves, leaves, some in caves. some bats eat insects, others...

That bounces back to create a mind map of their surroundings. their often oversize ears also help. some have such sensitive hearing, they can detect the sound of an insect landing on a leaf. are bats social animals? >> it depends on the species. some spend their whole lives pretty much alone. other bats will mate for life. you have some species where there is a male and a harem of females. he gets to mate with all of them but they have their own likings in mind so theyll sometimes cheat with nea...

Been plummeting all because of an outbreak theyve been fighting of a disease called white nose syndrome. >> it is a cold loving fungus that grows on the bat when the bats are hibernating in the wintertime. unfortunately this has affected in the order of of a dozen different species of north american bats. in some cases, populations have declined over 90%. >> thats huge. >> yes. it is a terrible let the to bats and ironically, it is a disease that we brought to bats. the fungus that causes this d...

♪ good evening. im anderson cooper. when covid-19 first surfaced at the end of 2019, scientists around the world wanted to know where it came from and how this deadly virus ended up in humans. although answers are not certain, it seems likely the coronavirus originated in bats. bats are diverse and ancient creatures and theyve been on earth longer than we have. despite that, there is still a lot we dont know. tonight we take a look at this enigmatic animal and dig into the mystery of covid-1...

>> ancient medical experts developed a lot of odd ideas about how you would cure rabies. they used to believe that one way to stop rabies from killing you was to take a hair from the tail of the rabid dog and insert it into the bite wound, and this is the origin of the phrase "hair of the dog" which we talk about as hangover treatment. >> then along came louis pasteur, he had been working on a vaccine for years and eventually tried to try on it a young boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog. the...