The Secret Lives of Bats: My Adventures with the World's Most Misunderstood Mammals

by Merlin Tuttle

Overview

A lifetime of adventures with bats around the world reveals why these special and imperiled creatures should be protected rather than feared.

From menacing moonshiners and armed bandits to charging elephants and man-eating tigers, Merlin Tuttle has stopped at nothing to find and protect bats on every continent they inhabit. Enamored of bats ever since discovering a colony in a cave as a boy, Tuttle saw how effective photography could be in persuading people not to fear bats, and he has spent his career traveling the world to document them.

Few people realize how sophisticated and intelligent bats are. Tuttle shares research showing that frog-eating bats can identify frogs by their calls, that vampire bats have a social order similar to that of primates, and that bats have remarkable memories. Bats also provide enormous benefits by eating crop pests, pollinating plants, and carrying seeds needed for reforestation. They save farmers billions of dollars annually and are essential to a healthy planet.

Sharing highlights from a lifetime of adventure and discovery, Tuttle takes us to the frontiers of bat research and conservation and forever changes the way we see these poorly understood yet fascinating creatures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544390430
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	06/11/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	309
Sales rank:	15,337
File size:	18 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Dr. MERLIN TUTTLE is an ecologist, wildlife photographer, and conservationist who has studied bats worldwide for more than fifty years. He founded Bat Conservation International in 1982. His work has been featured in Science, the Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and National Geographic.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
Teenage Discoveries
 
I’ve always been fascinated by nature, so when, at age 17, I discovered thousands of gray bats, now referred to as gray myotis, doing things that, according to books of the day, they weren’t supposed to do, I was immediately intrigued. It all began in April 1959 when a high school acquaintance told me about a bat cave near my home west of Knoxville, Tennessee. Baloney Cave was named for its baloney-shaped formations, and it was said to sometimes shelter thousands of bats.
 
The next weekend, I easily persuaded my father, who was always open for new adventure, to help me find it. We headed out on a beautiful spring afternoon. The sun was bright and the air was scented with honeysuckle blossoms as we followed a barely visible trail along a fence, then into the shade of stately old oak and hickory trees. A half-mile later, we found ourselves staring into a gaping pit about 12 feet in diameter at the top, sloping down like an antlion funnel. Limestone walls adorned in moss and ferns dripped from recent showers. This clearly was the cave my friend had described.
 
Wondering if the bats would still be there, we carefully climbed down into the cooler entrance, jumping the last few feet to the floor.
 
Before venturing into the dark interior, we retrieved our new miner’s caps and carbide lamps from our knapsacks and added fuel. Each lamp included an upper and a lower chamber. We added quarter-inch chunks of carbide into the lower ones and poured water into the upper ones. When water contacts carbide it produces acetylene gas. And when the gas exits through a tiny nozzle in the middle of a shiny, metal reflector, it can be lit with a spark from an embedded flint. This provided each of us with a half-inch flame for light. We could alter the brightness by adjusting a lever, which controlled the rate at which water dripped onto the carbide. Even at their brightest, these lamps were dim compared to today’s LED lights, but they were the best we had.
 
After allowing our eyes to adjust to the yellowish glow of our lamps, we began to look around, first noticing a room the size of a small bedroom on our left. It was strewn with old moonshine still paraphernalia, broken Mason jars, and parts of wooden barrels. The ceiling was smoke-blackened from the distilling process. Far more concerned about finding bats, we would later regret having assumed that moonshine stills in Baloney Cave were limited to the far distant past.
 
This was our first venture into a cave. My father led the way, as we stepped carefully around slick spots on an uneven floor, our hands often supporting us against the moist limestone walls. After going by several side passages, my father exclaimed, “Wow! Look at this.” We were just entering a room the size of a two-car garage, which our dim lights barely covered. Along one side, baloney-shaped formations ran down a wall into a pit; because the bottom was beyond the reach of our lights, it seemed endlessly deep.
 
“I sure hope the bats don’t live beyond that,” I commented, pointing into the chasm.
 
So far, we hadn’t seen any bats, though the cave floor was often strewn with a soft, dry accumulation of old droppings, commonly called guano. Although we were a little nervous about becoming lost, we decided to search the side passages. Some were quite narrow, requiring tight squeezes. My father finally suggested we return to the entrance and try to follow the most recent bat droppings like a proverbial trail of bread crumbs. As we were beginning again, we noticed a big difference between bat and rodent droppings.
 
Bat droppings were similar to mouse pellets, about a quarter-inch long by less than an eighth-inch wide. However, unlike those of deer mice and pack rats, which also frequent caves, once bat droppings dried, they easily crumbled into dozens of tiny fragments that reflected our lamps’ light in a rainbow of colors. The reflections came from tiny bits of insects the bats had eaten. Rodent droppings were composed mostly of plant material; they were hardened like bits of gravel and failed to reflect light.
 
By following only the freshest trail of evidence, we were able to move ahead with much greater confidence. A few minutes later, through a small hole in a wall, I heard my first chittering bats.
 
On the far side of a small room, I could barely make out a furry mat of several thousand gray myotis covering the ceiling. They apparently had heard us coming and were rapidly waking up. Clutching my butterfly net in one hand, I desperately attempted to scramble through the hole in time to catch a few before they could escape, but to no avail.
 
Suddenly the air was virtually saturated with flying bats. Dozens were landing on my head and shoulders, because I was inadvertently blocking their escape. They were crawling down my neck and into my shirt sleeves — no need for a net! But I soon realized that they meant no harm and were only seeking places to hide. In fact, they had far more to fear than I did.
 
This was my first lesson in the gentle nature of bats, especially those that form large colonies. They neither scratched nor bit me as they swarmed over me, though I did have to hold quite still in order to avoid inadvertently crushing them. When the pandemonium finally cleared, my father helped me retreat from the hole clutching a couple of struggling specimens, which we gently placed in a cloth bag.
 
Back at the cave entrance, we got out my father’s PetersonField Guide to Mammals to identify our bats. Based on their unicolor gray fur, we easily identified them as gray myotis (Myotis grisescens). All other cave-dwelling bats of North America have bi- or tricolored fur — that is, each hair has a dark base and lighter tip or is banded dark, light, and darker from base to tip.
 
Curious to see how many bats would emerge to feed that evening, we waited in the cave entrance. The first individuals left about a half-hour after sunset, followed by a steady stream of thousands. We sat quietly, listening to the flutter of wings, which sometimes passed within inches of our faces. I was enthralled. Where were they going, and when would they return?
 
Several nights later, when we brought my mother back to see these bats emerge, we had a big disappointment. The few books of the time that mentioned gray myotis stated that they lived in a single cave year-round. Nevertheless, ours had disappeared. Speculating that perhaps gray myotis just didn’t come out every night, we returned repeatedly to check their roosting area and watch for emergences at the entrance. But they were gone. They returned in September, then mysteriously disappeared again. Had they gone somewhere else for the winter? I was determined to find out.
 
With help from my father and some high school friends, I thoroughly explored even the innermost reaches of Baloney Cave on the chance that our bats had simply found a remote area where they could hibernate undisturbed. But we found no sign of them.
 
When our bats briefly returned and left again the following spring, I was convinced they must be migrating, despite books I’d read that said they didn’t migrate. Armed with field notes, documenting when the bats were present versus absent, and two museum-type voucher specimens to substantiate my identification, I convinced my mother to drive me to Washington, D.C., so I could meet with scientists at the Smithsonian’s Division of Mammals.

Table of Contents

Preface: A City That Loves Bats ix

Acknowledgments xiii

1 Teenage Discoveries 1

2 Saving the Gray Myotis 20

3 Tracking Bat Nightlife 43

4 Investigating Vampire Bats 58

5 Bats Through a Camera's Eye 73

6 Discovering Frog-Eating Bats 92

7 Finding America's Most Elusive Bats 112

8 Cacti That Compete for Bats 128

9 Free-Tailed Bat Caves and Crop Pests 138

10 African Adventures 158

11 Bat-Loving Monks, Tigers, and Poachers 173

12 Mysteries of Bat-Guiding Flowers 197

13 Bat Foresters 219

14 Fruit Grower Complaints 229

15 A National Park for Bats 235

Epilogue: Hope for the Future 243

Bibliography 252

Index 264

Editorial Reviews

12/21/2015
Tuttle, the founder of Bat Conservation International, sets out to motivate readers to care about conservation in this enjoyable collection of career travelogue stories. Hoping that having some fun and presenting good information to readers will work some magic, he describes the grandeur of bat communities discovered deep in secluded caves, recalls bat-related encounters with moonshiners and witch doctors, and shares stories of conservation successes. Tuttle really shines in his delightful accounts of complicated, risky, and expensive expeditions and creative efforts dedicated to getting the perfect nature photo. It can take 10,000 shots to get a single publishable image that shows a desired animal behavior, but that's the kind of image that Tuttle believes is critical to turn fear of bats into understanding. He details taming fragile bats to feed them by hand, getting ammonia poisoning from guano fumes while documenting massive colonies of freetailed bats, and creating a hotel room studio with furniture replaced by rainforest plants to create the impression of a shot taken high in the forest canopy. Tuttle shares his drive to document the creatures he loves with subtle humor and contagious, unsubtle passion. 40 color photos. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Bats are "sophisticated, beautiful, even cute, quite aside from their crucial roles as primary predators of insects, pollinators of flowers and dispersers as seeds," writes Tuttle, an ecologist who has championed their cause for more than 50 years. The author's cover stories and photographs have been featured in National Geographic and other magazines, and he has traveled the globe to study bats in their natural cave habitats, risking his life in the process. After obtaining a doctorate in bat biology, Tuttle worked as the curator of the Milwaukee Public Museum. In 1982, he resigned and founded the advocacy organization Bat Conservation International to enlist support for these much-maligned mammals that are in danger of becoming an endangered species. Bats are wrongly accused of destroying crops and spreading diseases such as rabies, and they are confused with their mythical blood-sucking namesakes. Tuttle sets the record straight, showing the important role bats play in pest control and their potential boom for farmers. "A single bat could catch thousands of insects in just one hour," he writes. "Bats ha[ve] a far better record of living safely with humans than even our beloved dogs, and…they also play essential roles in supporting human economies." Using implanted microchips to track their behavior, scientists have established that certain bats are comparable to elephants in their ability to maintain complex social relationships. They have highly sophisticated hunting practices and are altruistic within their groups. Tuttle notes that it is not unusual to find as many as 100,000 bats clustered together hibernating. His fascination with them began when he was 12 and he observed them in a cave near his Tennessee home. Encouraged by his father, who was a botanist, he explored the local caves where bats hibernated and studied their migratory behavior. Tuttle's recent attempts to photograph them in their natural habitat have led him through many hair-raising adventures, which he entertainingly chronicles. A page-turning memoir of curiosity about—and dedication to—a significant part of the natural world.--Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

11/01/2015
The bats aren't the only cliff-hangers in Tuttle's nonfiction debut. A bat lover since his teens, the author has made it his life's mission to study and photograph them in order to educate a largely bat-fearing public about the creatures' peaceful nature and environmental usefulness—he's the founder of Bat Conservation International and has written numerous articles for National Geographic. In the process, Tuttle has nearly drowned, been frozen, gotten shot, and suffocated. The book's tone is deadpan, but the author's passion is evident. Along with his adventures, Tuttle offers facts: bats eat mosquitoes and crop-destroying insects; pollinate plants—some of which have evolved to accommodate them; and are largely gentle, intelligent, good parents, and even easily trained. His tales of field photography and the inventive ways he devises to capture the creatures in flight and feeding are equally fascinating. VERDICT Those curious or intrepid enough to pick up this book will be rewarded with bat lore, a vivid portrait of a naturalist at work, and perhaps a new appreciation for a misunderstood species. Tuttle effectively makes his case for bats as awesome, rather than fearsome.—Lisa Peet, Library Journal

Library Journal

2015-07-08
Bats are "sophisticated, beautiful, even cute, quite aside from their crucial roles as primary predators of insects, pollinators of flowers and dispersers of seeds," writes Tuttle, an ecologist who has championed their cause for more than 50 years. The author's cover stories and photographs have been featured in National Geographic and other magazines, and he has traveled the globe to study bats in their natural cave habitats, risking his life in the process. After obtaining a doctorate in bat biology, Tuttle worked as the curator of the Milwaukee Public Museum. In 1982, he resigned and founded the advocacy organization Bat Conservation International to enlist support for these much-maligned mammals that are in danger of becoming an endangered species. Bats are wrongly accused of destroying crops and spreading diseases such as rabies, and they are confused with their mythical blood-sucking namesakes. Tuttle sets the record straight, showing the important role bats play in pest control and their potential boom for farmers. "A single bat could catch thousands of insects in just one hour," he writes. "Bats ha[ve] a far better record of living safely with humans than even our beloved dogs, and…they also play essential roles in supporting human economies." Using implanted microchips to track their behavior, scientists have established that certain bats are comparable to elephants in their ability to maintain complex social relationships. They have highly sophisticated hunting practices and are altruistic within their groups. Tuttle notes that it is not unusual to find as many as 100,000 bats clustered together hibernating. His fascination with them began when he was 12 and he observed them in a cave near his Tennessee home. Encouraged by his father, who was a botanist, he explored the local caves where bats hibernated and studied their migratory behavior. Tuttle's recent attempts to photograph them in their natural habitat have led him through many hair-raising adventures, which he entertainingly chronicles. A page-turning memoir of curiosity about—and dedication to—a significant part of the natural world.

Kirkus Reviews