Iwork on the biology of bats, and have always found it fascinating how they are adapted to their diverse ways of life. Two of their features allow us to use theory from aerodynamics and acoustics to understand how they are adapted. These are their ability to fly and their use of echolocation to detect prey. Being nocturnal and having the power of flight makes bats difficult animals to study. For many years I have been using methods such as stroboscopic photography (see Figure 1) and ultrasound recording to understand the lives of bats better. More recently I have been exploring the use of molecular methods to delve into the lifestyles and evolution of these extraordinary mammals.
Dr Roger Ransome, a retired schoolteacher from Gloucestershire, has been studying the greater horseshoe bats (see Figure 2) at Woodchester Mansion for more than 50 years, making it one of the longest-running studies on a mammal population anywhere in the world. Each bat in the population has been marked with a unique ring placed on its forearm, thus allowing individuals to be identified. Some bats at Woodchester are older than most of the people reading this article, the record being 27 years old. Roger catches all of the young bats while they are still attached to their mothers, within a few days of birth (see Figure 3), and so working out which mother produced which offspring (maternity) is relatively straightforward.
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