How did I first become interested in bats? Well, to be honest, I knew very little about bats until I actually started graduate school. I've been interested in biology my whole life, so it was a natural subject for me to major in at college. I decided during college that animal behavior was the subject in particular that I wanted to study, and the majority of the work I did before graduate school involved birds. In fact, I had never even seen a bat until I got to college and that was entirely by accident. One day while out taking some pictures, I heard a strange sound, sort of like "thip-thip-thip". I looked up and saw a bird that was flying very strangely. When the "bird" landed on the trunk of a tree, it was pretty obvious what I was really seeing. Needless to say, I snapped a picture of this little critter, shown here:

As you can tell, I'm not the world's best photographer, but I do what I can. (:

While E. fuscus is our study species, we often play host to other species of bats that are brought in to our lab becuase they're sick or injured. Two species that we've seen several representatives of in the last year or so are the Silver-Haired Bat Lasionycteris noctivagons and the Red Bat Lasiurus borealis. I took some pictures of a silver-haired bat that was brought to us a couple of years ago- she was found lying in a gutter near campus. Click here to view the pictures.

Here are some pictures of the red bat babies that were born in our lab two years ago.

And last, and certainly not least, here are some pictures of the actual bats that I work with in the lab, the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus:

Again, I realize these aren't the best pictures you've ever seen, but they're the best I have right now. I'm going to try and get some better pictures to throw up here sometime soon...

First, contrary to the hysteria that you normally hear where bats are concerned, the majority of bats are not rabid, and as such present little health risk for humans. If you see a bat, the best thing to do is leave it alone. If the animal is lying where you can catch it, it is more likely to be sick so a bat that you can catch is the worst one to try and catch! Leave it alone and call your local animal control department, and have someone who is familiar with handling wild animals take care of the bat. If you are bitten for whatever reason, you should get to a hospital so that you can get the rabies exposure vaccination just in case the animal that bit you was rabid. The shots are no big deal anymore, just three shots in the shoulder over the course of a month or so, not the horrible shots in the stomach that used to be necessary.

Also contrary to popular opinion, bats are NOT flying mice! They aren't rodents at all, they are in fact placed into their own Order, called the Chiroptera, which is Greek, meaning "hand wing". The diagram below shows why this is such a good description for bats. The bones that make up the bat's wing are the same as those that form a human hand. For comparison, the picture also shows the bones used in the wings of Pterodactyls and birds.  (This diagram is from the book The World of Bats the flying goblins of the night by Klaus Richarz and Alfred Limbrunner)

So, overall, bats are really cool animals, and you will be amazed by the things they can do. Any decent library should have some good books that give background information that you can use to find more detailed sources. If you can't find any, I can suggest some good books for people who are interested in learning about bats, so feel free to email me.

So, what do I actually do with the bats once I get them? Well, as I've stated elsewhere, I'm a 6th-year graduate at the Ohio State University. I'm working in the lab of Dr. W.M. Masters, studying echolocation in the big brown bat Eptesicus fuscus. We study our animals using various behavioral methods to try and figure out how they use their echolocation so well. Some past experiments have been concerned with the threshold for how precisely the bats can determine the range to a target or the types of parameters of their calls are necessary for the bats to be able to use them for echolocation. (I'm planning on putting up some relevant citations for those who are interested, but as always, school work and research takes up most of my time...)

The Ohio State University Batlab - This is the lab I work in at Ohio State.  Here you can find some more information about the people in the lab, the work we do and some really cool bat pictures!  Be sure to take our bat quiz to test your bat knowledge.

Bat Conservation International - The premier organization in the U.S. devoted to educating the public about bats and preserving bat species.

The Buzbee Bat House Temperature Plot - Contains links to numerous bat sites along with a plot of the temperature in his bat house over the last 5 days. Check this site out!

updated 29 January 2000