[Applause]
what is it like to be a bat this is a
question I think about often probably a
bit more often than the average person
now to some of you this question might
seem a little bit familiar because it
was made famous by the philosopher
Thomas Nagel who posed this question
what is it like to be a bat as a way to
challenge how we describe and study
consciousness basically his argument was
that we will never be able to understand
what it is like to be any animal because
we don’t have the ability to get inside
that animal’s brain and understand how
it perceives its environment or
according to his logic we will never be
able to understand what it is like to be
a bat now for some of you even just
hearing the word that might make you
squirm bats are some of the most feared
and quite frankly misunderstood
creatures on our planet but this fear
that we have about bats is based on
myths that simply aren’t true and
instead reflect a lack of understanding
we have about the lives of these
remarkable animals
professor Nagel chose a bat this is
example for good reason bats live in a
sensory world that is completely
different and quite frankly alien than
the sensory world that we are familiar
with but with my research I aim to get
inside these fascinating animals to try
to understand how they are using their
senses to navigate their complex world I
am an animal behaviorist and a bio
acoustician which means I use sound the
sound produced by animals to understand
their behavior and how those animals
interact with their environment
specifically I study the biological
sonar produced by dolphins and bats so
both of these animals can actually help
us solve challenges we have with our own
technological devices this is a field of
science known as biomimicry or bio
inspiration so consider this back when
this bat uses its active sensing it
makes echolocation signals to do so it
makes a sound within its larynx and then
emits that sound out through its mouth
into its environment
it bounces off an object and returns
back to the bat in the form of an echo
so these signals that these bats make we
call them ultrasonic because they’re
beyond our range of hearing but if we
are to take these calls and slow them
down to 10% the original speed we can
hear what the calls of the bat sounds
like so from that echo that comes back
to the bat the bat can then get
information about its environment make a
map of its environment from the echo it
can determine not only how far away an
object is but it can determine what
distance the object is and what
direction it is and what actually that
object is so again this is how these
bats make the map of their environment
but with my research I don’t just study
I study hundreds and thousands of Pat’s
what you were looking at is an emerging
colony of Brazilian free-tailed bats
these are a migratory species that spend
their winters in Mexico and Central
America and come up into the
southwestern United States in the
summers where they form massive maternal
colonies where the females get together
and they give birth to the baby bats or
the bat pups and raise the young and
when they come together in these groups
they form massive colonies of bats and
this is what I study with my research I
study how these massive groups of bats
interact and all come together the
reason why is that when they form these
groups they they’re actually doing a
task that really is quite complex for
these animals they’re using their
echolocation all coming together trying
to get those echoes from one another
without having any sort of interference
in that environment so to help you get
an idea or an appreciation of just how
challenging this would be for the bat
I’m now going to play for you a
different sound instead of hearing one
bat we’re gonna hear what it would be
like if you were a bat in the middle of
so hopefully you have a bit of an
appreciation of just how challenging it
would be if you were a bat trying to
hear your own echo while you have all
these other bats echolocating around you
and in fact what these bats are doing we
think is an impossible task everything
that we know about biology about math
about physics tells us that they
shouldn’t be able to use their
echolocation inside these large groups
what should be happening is their sound
should be interfering it should be
causing confusion of their sonar systems
and they should have a failure of their
navigation systems but the reality is
the bats are doing this very well and
they’ve been doing this very well for
millions and millions of years so what
that tells us as humans is that we’re
missing something there’s something we
still have to unlock about the secrets
of these bats and if we can figure that
out we can improve our own devices that
we’re beginning to use more and more
every day
we as humans have been trying to emulate
these animals for almost a century we
originally started studying dolphin and
bat echolocation as a way to develop our
naval sonar to help maintain the
security of our waters but as we’re
moving into a technological society
we’re finding more and more active
sensing techniques and more devices that
we’re beginning to use every single day
and despite all of the time and the
effort and the money we put into
studying these animals and creating
these devices we still haven’t been able
to create a device that can do what the
bats can do they can use active sensing
at the precision of that of a bat and
can use active sensing inside a large
group with others without causing a
complete failure of the navigation
systems so this is what I do with my
research I tried to study the biological
processes these animals are doing so
that we can take that information and
then apply that to technological devices
so how do I do this how do I get inside
a bat form and study the bats well help
you have an appreciation for this I
invite you all to use your imagination
and come along with me on a field trip
to my field site we’re going into the
middle of the desert in New Mexico there
you will find a large lava tube caves
we have about half a million bats inside
that cave and so before we go into the
cave we have to suit up so we have to
put on first of all we have to put on a
protective suit this is for two reasons
one we want to protect the bats from any
pathogens we might be bringing in and
two we want to protect us from any
pathogens we might be getting from the
bats the second piece of equipment we
have to put on is a full face respirator
this also has two main functions number
one there’s a toxic fungus that lives
among the bat guano inside the cave and
if we were to inhale those spores we
would have a really bad respiratory
infection the second reason why we were
at this respirator is that when you have
half a million bats inside a cave
there’s a lot of urination and a lot of
defecation and that causes a lot of
ammonia to build up in the air so if we
didn’t have our respirator we may pass
out within a few minutes of being inside
the cave
oh and there’s another piece of
equipment we still have to put on and
those are our special rattlesnake boots
because we’re in rattlesnake country and
rattlesnakes love to come inside the bat
cave okay so once we’re geared up we’re
ready to enter into the bat cave so and
you begin to leave behind the daylight
and as you go into the darkness all you
can see is what’s illuminated with your
headlamp and as you start to descend
into that darkness and take your first
few steps you’ll notice that each step
is a little bit springy and if you
continue walking you’ll notice you’re
suddenly going up a steep incline what’s
below you is actually the guano of all
of these bats overhead and you’re
climbing a giant sand dune like pile of
guano to get into the cave and if you
keep going and you happen to look down
in your rattlesnake boots you’ll notice
that the ground is just rising with
movement that’s because there’s a
special beetle that lives inside the
cave that feeds off of the guano so
there’s millions of these beetles just
moving around underneath your feet
not only is are they feeding off of the
guano but they’re also feeding off of
the baby bats that periodically fall
from the cave ceiling this is a maternal
colony remember so we have a lot of baby
bats that are being born and
periodically those bats will lose their
grip and fall to the cave floor well
they can’t get up
fly but those beetles will start eating
those baby that’s alive and reduce them
to a skeleton in a matter of hours so
once you keep walking you’ll start to
notice that there’s some movement off in
the distance and as that movement starts
to come into view you’ll notice that
what you’re seeing is the vortex of bats
that are flying around within the cave
yes these bats are nocturnal but during
the day they’re constantly adjusting
their position throughout the cave and
so you have this complex flight behavior
of these bats throughout the cave so
they maintain this vortexing as they fly
around and periodically one of those
bats might misjudge where it’s flying
because it’s not used to a human coming
into its world and it might happen to
land on your shoulder so you take your
gloved hand and you carefully pick it up
and give it a little boost so it
continued along the way with the rest of
its friends and as you keep walking into
the cave you’ll start to notice this
beautiful flight pattern that these bats
are exhibiting this very organized
flight behavior of the bats so at times
they almost seem to form freeway like
patterns within the cave based on where
they are flying and you can’t help but
just be absolutely wowed by this
complexity of the bats and you keep
going and you’ll just see and be so
appreciative of the beauty of this
incredible bat ballet that’s happening
overhead and you’re absolutely
transfixed by what you’re seeing even if
you still have half a million bats that
are urinating and defecating all over
your head so after hearing my
description of the bat cave you might be
thinking to yourself this lady is
absolutely crazy but let me assure you I
was never always this intrepid when it
came to bats or bat caves in fact I
wasn’t even supposed to study bats
I got my PhD in Hawaii studying dolphins
a far cry from a bat cave let me assure
you and in fact the first time I ever
went into a bat cave I was absolutely
terrified the first time I went in I
made it only about fifty feet before I
nervously dropped my equipment and ran
out of that cave as quickly as I could
but
next time I went back I made it fifty
feet further and before I knew it I was
confidently climbing that guano pile and
spending all this time inside the cave
and now I get to experience the extreme
joy of taking my students there each new
field season and helping to guide them
into their bat cave journey but by
spending all this time with the bats
I’m beginning to unlock some of the
secrets they have and start to
understand what are some of the
strategies they’re using to be so
successful with their sonar in these
groups so in addition to spending time
inside the cave I also spend a lot of
time recording bats outside of the cave
and when I do that I get to play with
some really cool technology so here is a
picture of a drone that we developed in
my lab we use this drone it has a
special microphone on it to record the
bat and it also has a special camera
that uses the body heat of the bats to
make an image in the darkness so we fly
this when the bats are outside of the
cave when they’re flying at speeds
almost a hundred kilometers an hour to
try to understand what adaptations these
bats are using with their sonar and
their flight when they’re flying at high
speeds without colliding with one
another midair another one of my
favorite technologies is our biological
drone this is our Hawk her name is Belle
she is the newest member of our lab and
she is a female Harris Hawk and she’s
trained to carry a special backpack that
we have outfitted with a special camera
and a microphone and she flies right
through the group of the bats to get
that recording from inside the group of
the bats for us and get that data from
inside the group but with all of these
methods whether I’m inside the cave or
outside of the cave I’m fundamentally
trying to answer the same question what
is it like to be a bat inside of a bat
swarm and with these answering these
questions we can again begin to start to
find problem or spying solutions to
problems that we have in our everyday
lives so as I mentioned at the beginning
of my talk at first that seemed to live
in a world that is alien from ours but
the reality is our world is becoming
more and more like that of a bat as
we’re moving into this technological
future
finding a greater need for active
sensing devices active sensing is all
around us we use active sensing to
defend our waters to map the oceans to
find food we even use it to create
assistive devices for the blind even our
robotic vacuums and driverless cars use
forms of active sensing so if we begin
if we can begin to understand some of
the secrets that these bats are using to
be so successful with their sonar we can
better advance into our technological
future so even though most of you will
probably never set foot in a real bat
cave we all have versions of bat caves
in our own lives these are scenarios
that initially seem really scary to us
but I really just misunderstood they
seem scary to us because they force us
to leave behind what is familiar and
instead head into the unknown but if we
can be brave enough to just take those
first steps we can gain the confidence
we need to leave behind that world of
the unknown and instead head into the
world of dare tooth so I encourage all
of you to embrace the inner bat caves in
your lives and dare to dare to leave
behind what is familiar dare to boldly
enter into the unknown and dare to
navigate your complex world thank you [Applause]
what is it like to be a bat this is a
question I think about often probably a
bit more often than the average person
now to some of you this question might
seem a little bit familiar because it
was made famous by the philosopher
Thomas Nagel who posed this question
what is it like to be a bat as a way to
challenge how we describe and study
consciousness basically his argument was
that we will never be able to understand
what it is like to be any animal because
we don’t have the ability to get inside
that animal’s brain and understand how
it perceives its environment or
according to his logic we will never be
able to understand what it is like to be
a bat now for some of you even just
hearing the word that might make you
squirm bats are some of the most feared
and quite frankly misunderstood
creatures on our planet but this fear
that we have about bats is based on
myths that simply aren’t true and
instead reflect a lack of understanding
we have about the lives of these
remarkable animals
professor Nagel chose a bat this is
example for good reason bats live in a
sensory world that is completely
different and quite frankly alien than
the sensory world that we are familiar
with but with my research I aim to get
inside these fascinating animals to try
to understand how they are using their
senses to navigate their complex world I
am an animal behaviorist and a bio
acoustician which means I use sound the
sound produced by animals to understand
their behavior and how those animals
interact with their environment
specifically I study the biological
sonar produced by dolphins and bats so
both of these animals can actually help
us solve challenges we have with our own
technological devices this is a field of
science known as biomimicry or bio
inspiration so consider this back when
this bat uses its active sensing it
makes echolocation signals to do so it
makes a sound within its larynx and then
emits that sound out through its mouth
into its environment
it bounces off an object and returns
back to the bat in the form of an echo
so these signals that these bats make we
call them ultrasonic because they’re
beyond our range of hearing but if we
are to take these calls and slow them
down to 10% the original speed we can
hear what the calls of the bat sounds
like so from that echo that comes back
to the bat the bat can then get
information about its environment make a
map of its environment from the echo it
can determine not only how far away an
object is but it can determine what
distance the object is and what
direction it is and what actually that
object is so again this is how these
bats make the map of their environment
but with my research I don’t just study
I study hundreds and thousands of Pat’s
what you were looking at is an emerging
colony of Brazilian free-tailed bats
these are a migratory species that spend
their winters in Mexico and Central
America and come up into the
southwestern United States in the
summers where they form massive maternal
colonies where the females get together
and they give birth to the baby bats or
the bat pups and raise the young and
when they come together in these groups
they form massive colonies of bats and
this is what I study with my research I
study how these massive groups of bats
interact and all come together the
reason why is that when they form these
groups they they’re actually doing a
task that really is quite complex for
these animals they’re using their
echolocation all coming together trying
to get those echoes from one another
without having any sort of interference
in that environment so to help you get
an idea or an appreciation of just how
challenging this would be for the bat
I’m now going to play for you a
different sound instead of hearing one
bat we’re gonna hear what it would be
like if you were a bat in the middle of
so hopefully you have a bit of an
appreciation of just how challenging it
would be if you were a bat trying to
hear your own echo while you have all
these other bats echolocating around you
and in fact what these bats are doing we
think is an impossible task everything
that we know about biology about math
about physics tells us that they
shouldn’t be able to use their
echolocation inside these large groups
what should be happening is their sound
should be interfering it should be
causing confusion of their sonar systems
and they should have a failure of their
navigation systems but the reality is
the bats are doing this very well and
they’ve been doing this very well for
millions and millions of years so what
that tells us as humans is that we’re
missing something there’s something we
still have to unlock about the secrets
of these bats and if we can figure that
out we can improve our own devices that
we’re beginning to use more and more
every day
we as humans have been trying to emulate
these animals for almost a century we
originally started studying dolphin and
bat echolocation as a way to develop our
naval sonar to help maintain the
security of our waters but as we’re
moving into a technological society
we’re finding more and more active
sensing techniques and more devices that
we’re beginning to use every single day
and despite all of the time and the
effort and the money we put into
studying these animals and creating
these devices we still haven’t been able
to create a device that can do what the
bats can do they can use active sensing
at the precision of that of a bat and
can use active sensing inside a large
group with others without causing a
complete failure of the navigation
systems so this is what I do with my
research I tried to study the biological
processes these animals are doing so
that we can take that information and
then apply that to technological devices
so how do I do this how do I get inside
a bat form and study the bats well help
you have an appreciation for this I
invite you all to use your imagination
and come along with me on a field trip
to my field site we’re going into the
middle of the desert in New Mexico there
you will find a large lava tube caves
we have about half a million bats inside
that cave and so before we go into the
cave we have to suit up so we have to
put on first of all we have to put on a
protective suit this is for two reasons
one we want to protect the bats from any
pathogens we might be bringing in and
two we want to protect us from any
pathogens we might be getting from the
bats the second piece of equipment we
have to put on is a full face respirator
this also has two main functions number
one there’s a toxic fungus that lives
among the bat guano inside the cave and
if we were to inhale those spores we
would have a really bad respiratory
infection the second reason why we were
at this respirator is that when you have
half a million bats inside a cave
there’s a lot of urination and a lot of
defecation and that causes a lot of
ammonia to build up in the air so if we
didn’t have our respirator we may pass
out within a few minutes of being inside
the cave
oh and there’s another piece of
equipment we still have to put on and
those are our special rattlesnake boots
because we’re in rattlesnake country and
rattlesnakes love to come inside the bat
cave okay so once we’re geared up we’re
ready to enter into the bat cave so and
you begin to leave behind the daylight
and as you go into the darkness all you
can see is what’s illuminated with your
headlamp and as you start to descend
into that darkness and take your first
few steps you’ll notice that each step
is a little bit springy and if you
continue walking you’ll notice you’re
suddenly going up a steep incline what’s
below you is actually the guano of all
of these bats overhead and you’re
climbing a giant sand dune like pile of
guano to get into the cave and if you
keep going and you happen to look down
in your rattlesnake boots you’ll notice
that the ground is just rising with
movement that’s because there’s a
special beetle that lives inside the
cave that feeds off of the guano so
there’s millions of these beetles just
moving around underneath your feet
not only is are they feeding off of the
guano but they’re also feeding off of
the baby bats that periodically fall
from the cave ceiling this is a maternal
colony remember so we have a lot of baby
bats that are being born and
periodically those bats will lose their
grip and fall to the cave floor well
they can’t get up
fly but those beetles will start eating
those baby that’s alive and reduce them
to a skeleton in a matter of hours so
once you keep walking you’ll start to
notice that there’s some movement off in
the distance and as that movement starts
to come into view you’ll notice that
what you’re seeing is the vortex of bats
that are flying around within the cave
yes these bats are nocturnal but during
the day they’re constantly adjusting
their position throughout the cave and
so you have this complex flight behavior
of these bats throughout the cave so
they maintain this vortexing as they fly
around and periodically one of those
bats might misjudge where it’s flying
because it’s not used to a human coming
into its world and it might happen to
land on your shoulder so you take your
gloved hand and you carefully pick it up
and give it a little boost so it
continued along the way with the rest of
its friends and as you keep walking into
the cave you’ll start to notice this
beautiful flight pattern that these bats
are exhibiting this very organized
flight behavior of the bats so at times
they almost seem to form freeway like
patterns within the cave based on where
they are flying and you can’t help but
just be absolutely wowed by this
complexity of the bats and you keep
going and you’ll just see and be so
appreciative of the beauty of this
incredible bat ballet that’s happening
overhead and you’re absolutely
transfixed by what you’re seeing even if
you still have half a million bats that
are urinating and defecating all over
your head so after hearing my
description of the bat cave you might be
thinking to yourself this lady is
absolutely crazy but let me assure you I
was never always this intrepid when it
came to bats or bat caves in fact I
wasn’t even supposed to study bats
I got my PhD in Hawaii studying dolphins
a far cry from a bat cave let me assure
you and in fact the first time I ever
went into a bat cave I was absolutely
terrified the first time I went in I
made it only about fifty feet before I
nervously dropped my equipment and ran
out of that cave as quickly as I could
but
next time I went back I made it fifty
feet further and before I knew it I was
confidently climbing that guano pile and
spending all this time inside the cave
and now I get to experience the extreme
joy of taking my students there each new
field season and helping to guide them
into their bat cave journey but by
spending all this time with the bats
I’m beginning to unlock some of the
secrets they have and start to
understand what are some of the
strategies they’re using to be so
successful with their sonar in these
groups so in addition to spending time
inside the cave I also spend a lot of
time recording bats outside of the cave
and when I do that I get to play with
some really cool technology so here is a
picture of a drone that we developed in
my lab we use this drone it has a
special microphone on it to record the
bat and it also has a special camera
that uses the body heat of the bats to
make an image in the darkness so we fly
this when the bats are outside of the
cave when they’re flying at speeds
almost a hundred kilometers an hour to
try to understand what adaptations these
bats are using with their sonar and
their flight when they’re flying at high
speeds without colliding with one
another midair another one of my
favorite technologies is our biological
drone this is our Hawk her name is Belle
she is the newest member of our lab and
she is a female Harris Hawk and she’s
trained to carry a special backpack that
we have outfitted with a special camera
and a microphone and she flies right
through the group of the bats to get
that recording from inside the group of
the bats for us and get that data from
inside the group but with all of these
methods whether I’m inside the cave or
outside of the cave I’m fundamentally
trying to answer the same question what
is it like to be a bat inside of a bat
swarm and with these answering these
questions we can again begin to start to
find problem or spying solutions to
problems that we have in our everyday
lives so as I mentioned at the beginning
of my talk at first that seemed to live
in a world that is alien from ours but
the reality is our world is becoming
more and more like that of a bat as
we’re moving into this technological
future
finding a greater need for active
sensing devices active sensing is all
around us we use active sensing to
defend our waters to map the oceans to
find food we even use it to create
assistive devices for the blind even our
robotic vacuums and driverless cars use
forms of active sensing so if we begin
if we can begin to understand some of
the secrets that these bats are using to
be so successful with their sonar we can
better advance into our technological
future so even though most of you will
probably never set foot in a real bat
cave we all have versions of bat caves
in our own lives these are scenarios
that initially seem really scary to us
but I really just misunderstood they
seem scary to us because they force us
to leave behind what is familiar and
instead head into the unknown but if we
can be brave enough to just take those
first steps we can gain the confidence
we need to leave behind that world of
the unknown and instead head into the
world of dare tooth so I encourage all
of you to embrace the inner bat caves in
your lives and dare to dare to leave
behind what is familiar dare to boldly
enter into the unknown and dare to
navigate your complex world thank you [Applause]
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