LULU: 3, 2, 1. Imagine…

MUSIC

LULU:  Twilight descends and you open your mouth to let out

ANA: High pitched pulses 

SQUEAK SEQUAK/ CLICKING SOUNDS 

LULU: That guide you as you’re…

ANGELO: Exploring the world.

LULU You sprout wings, not like a bird but more like

ARMANDO: como un dragón  [like a dragon]

LULU (CREEPILY): You spend the night prowling for unsuspecting victims

ALAN: evil laugh / yumm

SWOOP SWOOP sounds

LULU: But when the sun begins to rise, you rush home

ANGELO: you stretch your wings. 

STRETCHING SOUNDS

LULU: And wrap them around your body 

SCHWOOP

LULU: until you fall asleep... 

ALAN: snore 

LULU: upside down. You have become:

ANGELO: a bat!

CLICKY CLICKY CLICK

LULU Now is the part where I make you sing the theme song with me!

THEME: Terrestrials, terrestrials. We are not the worst. We are the 

ANGELO: Bestials? 

THEME: BESTRIALS!

LULU: You got it! 

ANGELO: Laugh

LULU: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness right here on earth. Im your host Lulu Miller. Joined as always by my song bud!

ALAN: [GUITAR RIFF] Bat to the bone!

LULU: Alan...And my producer bud!

ANA: [GUITAR RIFF] wasaap 

LULU: Ana. And you are bringing us a spoOooky story about this spooooky creature who flies through the night just out of view of us humans and is secretly... stealthily... MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE? 

ANA: uh huh! and here to help me tell the tale is-- 

ALAN + ANA: [dun dun dun batman theme] BATMAN

ANGELO: because I study bats LAUGH

MUSIC

 ANA: Ok, it's not undercover superhero Bruce Wayne. it's Angelo Soto-Centeno, a Puerto Rican scientist now living in NYC. And he's not THE BATMAN, but - as a guy who catches bats for a living, has studied bats for over 20 years, and has an arm full of bat tattoos - 

ANGELO: That is true.  

ANA: I’m gonna call him A BATMAN. 

ANGELO: you gotta do what you gotta do

ANA: And this Boricua Batman grew up fascinated by bats

MUSIC ENDS 

FOREST SOUND DESIGN // NEW MUSIC FADES IN

ANA As a kid, he would hear them rustling in the trees outside his bedroom window.  He wanted to find out what they were doing out there in the cover of darkness. So he started poking around for bats... literally.

ANGELO: There was a little creek that had this little cavern, and inside that cavern, there was a roost of this Jamaican fruit bat. I would go in there with a stick and just try to poke him 

SFX SQUEAKS

ANGELO: and just to make him fly out,

FLUTTER SFX

ANA:  Wait wait wait you'd poke bats and watch them fly out? Wasn't that scary? Weren't you scared?

ANGELO: NO. Many people may be afraid of the dark. I'm, I'm definitely not

ANA: And now, as an adult? Angelo studies all kinds of bats -

MONTAGE MUSIC IN

ANGELO: we got red bats big brown bats. horseshoe bats. free tail bats, .

ANA: and pollinator bats with long tongues like hummingbirds 

ANGELO: and we got little myotis bats, Leaf nosed bats,  flying Foxes they look like puppies. And they're beautiful. They look like a little chihuahua.

SFX CHICHUAHUA

ANA:  but the star of today's show is

LIGHTNING CRACK 

ANGELO:  a steno derma,

MIRA: STENNNNNODERRRMA

ANA:  Stenoderma means thin skinned. It's a bat with somewhat see-through wings, short reddish fur, big pointy ears that are almost like devil horns. It has beady eyes and a long pointy pig-snout that stretches up towards its forehead. It has sharp FANGS, and with it's wings stretched out it looks like dracula.

ANGELO: Stemoderma is maybe not for everybody, but I think it's, it's actually quite a cute bat.

MUSIC ENDS

 ANA: hmm, agree to disagree angelo! But he tells me that behind that creepy face, stenoderma holds something gentler, and something crucial for humanity: the ability to repair the planet after some of the most powerful natural disasters ever: hurricanes! 

SFX WIND ROAR WOOSH

LULU: BATS?!

ANA  Mmhmm, and we'll get there, but first...

[SPOOKY MUSIC FOOTSTEPs] 

ANA We need to wade deep deep deep into the darkness of the forests  .

LULU do i hear u actually going in there?
ANA: Yeh
Sounds scary

SFX FOOTSTEPS CONTINUE

ANA:  Don’t worry I have a headlamp and a whole team of batmans

SOUND UP

HOLA, etc

ANA:  I'm tiptoeing through the woods of a small farm, a finca, in the town of Dorado, Puerto Rico the chickens and dogs and horses have all gone to bed and now is the time when the creatures of the NIIIGHT TAKE OVER

ANA: Oh wow!

 ANA: Gasp flying over our heads are dozens of winged silhouettes of bats! Crossing the sky, lit by the moon between trees. The batmen I'm here with are bat scientists and bat enthusiasts.

WILKINS:  No te asustes….

ANA: And they keep telling me not to be scared.

ANA: Aaaah, me asusté laughs

 ANA: But I can’t help but feel a little freaked out as they swoop around the trees over us in their chaotic way. Cus I've never really seen a bat. Not up close. I’ve been told to stay away from them. I've only heard bad things: they're rats with wings, they drink blood, they wanna bite me. And it feels like these ones might fly right into my head.

WILKINS: Ya está aquí. WILKINS SOMETHING / ANA OH!

 ANA: But then at the bottom of a little hill... 

WILLKINS:YES!rrrr

 ANA: we catch one! 

ANA WOA!

ANA In a huge net these batmen have set up between the trees. The bat is all tangled up  in the threads till a scientist named Wilkins reaches in with a gloved hand and gently untangles its furry little brown body. It / And the bat fits in the palm of his hand.

WILKINS: Yes. Un murciélago insectívoro, el mismo ahorita murcielago  oscuro epistesicus fuscus 

TRANSLATION: This is an insect-eating bat. A big brown bat.

ANA: This species may be called Big Brown Bat... but it fits in the palm of his hand....

ANA: And then he invites me…

WILKINS: Tócalo no te va morder cuando lo que está agarrado

ANA: to touch it.

 ANA: gasp

ANA: It is SO soft!

ANA: I am touching the wing. Oh, wow. 

ANA: Up close, I see how adorable it is.. 

Ana: So delicate.

ANA: This creature that is THE ONLY MAMMAL that flies.With its perky ears, a fuzzy lil body… 

WILKINS: es un macho...

 ANA:  it’s not like a rat at all.. /

WILKINS:  Parece un perrito. Sí, un murciélago bien bien lindo.

 TRANSLATION: It looks like a dog. It's a very beautiful bat.

ANA: And not only does it look like a dog, it is actually MORE CLOSELY related to dogs… than rats. [woa] And like a dog....  

ANGELO: Bats are very heavy animals. If they stop beating their wings, they'll plop down.

ANA: Which explains why bat flight patterns look so chaotic to us on the ground cus everytime they spot a mosquito or a moth in the air and fwoop shovel it into their mouths, their wings stop flapping and they drop down in the air, then start flying again in the blink of an eye. 

ALAN: bat myth BUSTED!

LULU: WOW! But wait did i catch that right - they use their WINGS to catch the bugs, not their tongues like frogs? 

ANA: mm hm

ANGELO: they pick up the insects with their wings oh, and they bring it to the mouth.

LULU just like shoveling it in nom nom

ANA YEP! like a wing spoon

LULU ha!

ANA: But how are bats even finding these insects to eat? I thought they like couldn't see at all? 

ANGELO: They can see, quite well, But on top of that, they're using echolocation,

ALAN: echo location location location

ANA Bats use their voices to create a map of the world. Because what happens when you yell into a big, cavernous space like an empty room or a stairwell?  You get an echo echo echo. That's the sound of the actual sound waves of your voice bouncing back to your ears. Bats do that all the time through those high-pitched screeches they make. 

SCREECH

ANGELO: is more like pulses.

INSERT BAT SOUND HERE, PULSES

ANA: And each pulse goes out, bouncing off tree trunks and leaves and even ZZZ insects, allowing the bats to hear where to fly next. 

Echolocation clicks

ANA: And it's how bats have been able to evolve into CREATURES OF THE NIGHT! Most birds can’t fly in the dark cause eyes need light to see, but bats rule the skies while the little birdies are sleeping.

LULU:  OK BUT ANA Ana can I just interrupt because

ANA yes lulu

LULU this is our spooky episode what about bats that drink blood

ANA I knew you were going to ask about that

LULU blood thirsty bats. IS THAT MYTH IS REAL AT ALL?

ANA: ok yes, they are real

ANGELO: true vampire bats, they look really crazy

ANA: But only 3 species of bats drink blood. The rest of the over 1000 species are insectivores 

ALAN: I VANT to eat your bugs!

ANA: or fruit-eating bats

Alan: I VANT TO DRINK YOUR FRUITTTT JUICE hahahah

LULU: totally fascinating, I still wanna know about vampires though.

ANA: Alright. Here’s everything you want to know about vampire bats, in 30 seconds or less, in a song.

ALAN SONG

Vampire bats only drink blood.

Their saliva is anticoagulant

pigs and cows, deer, birds, and goats.

They search for body heat with their nose.

They chomp through the skin with razor sharp teeth / CHOMP

Their tongue laps up the blood, that’s all they eat! / 

To share food, they puke - regurgitation.

They hang together in groups- association.

They've been roaming the earth for millions of years

longer than dracula myths and fears

They can run on the ground, on all fours

They don’t eat bugs or fruit, they’re SANGUIVORES!

SANGIVORES - i love it!

ANA: Ok are you good, can I get back to the better story about how stenoderma bats can help human beings recover from disasters/ hurricanes?

LULU:  my thirst for blood is quenched

ANA: Great. Now we are finally gonna meet a FRUIT eating bat - 

lightning crack - mira stenodermmma - 

ana : that holds the key to regenerating forests after massive hurricanes.

[sound of key unlocking a door + maybe music in]

ANA A key that lies deep in the bowels of a hallowed museum, and deep in the bowels...    of the bat itself.

LULU: Huh/what?

ANA I'll explain. Right after this break. na ha.

 

BREAK

ANA: Terrestrials is back. I am producerbud Ana, on a quest to find the elusive, STENODERMA that can supposedly help repair an entire ecosystem after fierce hurricanes. But so far, on my forest nightwalk, we’ve come up empty handed. Luckily, Angelo knows where i can see one up close and personal

ANGELO: The American Museum of Natural History, holds more bat specimens than the majority of collections in the world.

ANA: Angelo works here in the museum. And he’s leading me away from the tourists and the giant whale and into the secret back corridors.r

ANGELO:  This entire hallway has dozens and dozens of cabinets that are all full of bats. 

We’re walking down a long hallway, past taxidermy coyotes and caribou head, looking for the right cabinet of bats.

Ana: There is Stenoderma Rufum Rufum here. 

ANGELO: Oh yeah. You found it? 

ANA: Angelo unlocks it 

ANGELO: [unlocking the drawer]. Let me show you that creepy thing here. 

ANA: It looks like a jar of dead things.

ANGELO: No, this is my drink, this is my energy drink. I'm just kidding.

ANA: This is not an energy drink. It is in fact a jar of things that look like pickles but are actually pickled... BATS.

ANGELO: So these are basically specimens that have been collected in their entire body is preserved in alcohol.

ANA: He opens the jar and pulls out three wet, stinky, dead bats.  

ANA: It looks like a bat zombie Angelo. It, it’s creeping me out. 

ANGELO: I love it. I love this stuff.

ANA: Angelo says Stenoderma are some of the most mysterious bats out there They spend their lives hiding in the upper canopies of trees where the forests are so thick, light from the moon can't penetrate through the leaves.  

ANA: And they are [scary voice] ON THE PROWL... for fruit! AS much juicy fruit as they can snarf.". Then they fly back home, hang upside down, and wrap themselves up in their winged sleeping bags 

ALAN (snore). 

ANA All without ever getting caught...

ALAN (snore) 

ANA  ...in a human trap. 

ANA  But the TRUE wonder of the stenoderma only reveals itself... after one of the scariest things of all... a big, powerful hurricane. 

SFX WIND

ANGELO: Yeah.

ANA: living on an island, storms and hurricanes are a natural occurrence... 

WIND/RAIN SOUNDs

The trees hold themselves down with their roots, people hide away safe and warm in their homes, animals hunker down in their burroughs, waiting for the storm to pass.... 

ANA The word hurricane actually comes from “jurakan” Meaning the Taino god of storms and destruction. And bat scientist Wilkins Otero tells me that normal hurricanes have always played an important role in the ecosystems down here

WILKINS: Hay una sucesión del bosque donde se ca los árboles más grandes y permiten que otros crezcan. , A lo mejor hay algo 

TRANSLATION: There is a succession of the forest where the biggest trees fall and allow the others to grow. 

WILKINS que un balance ecológico.

TRANSLATION: It's something like an ecological balance.

ANA: The problem is that the hurricanes we are seeing more and more of today are fueled by climate change, which warms the oceans and makes the winds and rains more intense than anything human beings have seen before.

WILKINS:  era un monstruo . lo que estaba pasando 

TRANSLATION: It was a monster, what was happening.

When a monster hurricane swirls over the ocean, rains and winds create a powerful winding vortex of clouds that picks up speed and travels over waters and land, threatening to destroy everything in its path. 

And one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to make landfall in recorded human history was Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico in 2017.

WILKINS: Te puedo decir que pon que hay un antes y un después de lo que fue Huracán María en puerto rico se ven los cambios drásticos

 TRANSLATION: I can tell you that there's a before and after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. You can see the drastic changes.

ANA:  Before Maria, the forests of Puerto Rico were lush and dark. iguanas and little crested anole lizards hid in tangles of leafy tree branches. The song of birds and coquis filled the moist air.

ANA But Maria came with winds over 150 / up to 160 miles per hour. That’s like a speeding train running into the forest. And it brought waters that flooded the entire island. 

WILKINS: Como los ríos arrastraron, eh, agua sobre lugares que uno no se imaginaba que podía pasar.

 TRANSLATION: The rivers carried water over places that you'd never imagine possible /// that you’d never think could have happened.

ANA: Entire rainforests were chopped down by the winds and rain. The floods carried away birds, lizards, frogs, cows and horses, even caves were flooded, carrying away bats

WILKINS: hubieron lugares que no quedó ni una hoja en pie. Fue bien fuerte.

TRANSLATION: There were places where not a single leaf remained standing. Like it was, it was very strong.

ANA: After Maria passed, the humans of Puerto Rico began slowly rebuilding their lives, BUT FORESTS TAKE YEARS / DECADES TO REGROW.  Even if human beings planted thousands of trees a day, it would take years to get back to the amount of trees that stood before the storm. 

BUT fruit eating bats like Stenoderma.... They are responsible for up to 95% of the regrowth of tropical forests after destructive events like hurricanes. 

LULU: 95 perrrrcent!?!?

ANA: Yup!

And After Maria? They got straight to work.... with....  their....

OTHER GUY: caca

TRANSLATE: Poop

Record scratch. 

ANA: You heard that right: poop.  Caca. AKA GUANO - a special name for bat’s special poop.

FANFARE 

ANA: The secret to HOW this tiny freaky fruit eating bat actually regrows a forest after a hurricane... is through its POOP.

ANA: DA DUH DUH DAAA

ANA As we’ve learned on Terrestrials squirrels sometimes help plant trees by forgetting where they buried their nuts.. But there are no squirrels in the tropical forests of Puerto Rico. And birds? They can eat and poop out seeds that turn into new plants. But after Maria, they had nowhere to escape the hot sun that beat down during the days  as the island roasted without the shade of trees. So many of them left.

ANA: But what about a creature that digests seeds in a more plant-friendly way than squirrels, that flies all over the place while pooping and is impervious to the hot sun because it EEEEEEE comes out at night?

ANA Enter...

LIGHTNING CRASH 

ANA: STENODERMA

ANGELO:  Bats they're not only picking up the seed and dispersing it here, they're flying away with it. And dispersing it in very distant places.

ANA: Scientists have seen that fruit bats travel to far off spots in forests that have been destroyed, and that unlike birds who mostly eat where they FIND food, bats often take their food to go, meaning they're spreading their poop around in more places . 

WILKINS: Es son los que comen los mula más o menos el de suco de su de su peso en la noche de alimento.

TRANSLATION:  Some bats eat more or less 20% of their body weight when they feed each night 

ANA:! That would be like me eating a week's worth of food in ONE MEAL!! WILKINS: Imagínate que tú comas un 20% de tu peso... 

TRANSLATION:  Imagine if you eat 20% of your body weight... 

WILKINS que tú vas a hacer cuando llegas a la casa,

TRANSLATION: What are you going to do when you get home?

ANA: Hm?

WILKINS: Cagar.

ANA:  you poop. a LOT.

ALAN: I T'S RAINING POOP HALLELUJAH IT'S RAINING POOP AMEN

ANA: And while Stenoderma might be too smart to get trapped in our nets, at the end of our night hike in puerto rico, we actually do come across what look like ... their poop,

ALEJANDRO: Encontramos cacas 

ANA: filled with seeds of a native plant

WILKINS:  Tu ve la semillita, esto as un semillita. 

ANA: Si! oh!

WILKINS:  Laughs, pero mira aquí. Eso es lo que ellos comen.

TRANSLATION: Look at this, This is what they eat.

WILKINS: Es una frutita.

ANA : ohhh

ANA: Wilkins shines his headlamp on a tree that has what looks like a tiny ear of corn on it

ANA:  When most other animals poop out out the seeds they eat, they’re often TOO digested to grow.  But when our flying puppy friends take a bite? The seed in question enters the most magical chamber of forest regeneration known to human kind: a bat’s furry little digestive system. Because when a fruit bat fart sound poops out a seed, it is ready to be planted in the ground and turn into a plant through a process called scarification. Where a bat’s gut juice breaks down the shells of certain seeds just enough to get them ready to grow

Plus Bat poop is an amazing fertilizer for the soil and all of this combined is why fruit bats are known as the best reforesters on the planet,

ANGELO:  So for keeping our forests happy and healthy, we wanna have bats around because they are the ones that are helping us planting , this forest without us even actually having to try. 

ANA: Tropical forests like the ones in Puerto Rico clean the earth’s air. They pull out huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the air, which makes it easier for us humans to breathe and slows down the warming effects of climate change. Plus, tropical forests are home to millions of species~ 

Insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals that rely on the trees for habitat. 

And after disasters like hurricanes and landslides or even when human beings chop down trees for roads and buildings, it's the fruit bats who come in, under the cover of darkness, and lay the seeds of a new future

ALAN: I T'S RAINING POOP HALLELUJAH IT'S RAINING POOP AMEN

ANA These creatures that so many people think are scary and ugly and bad and are actually saving our forests every single night. And the evidence is all around us.

SOUNDS OF THE FOREST FADE UP

ALAN SONG:  phantom of the opera?? Big organ hits

LULU: ALan GOffinsky everyone! Ok that’ll do it nothing else cool about to happen. GASP! WhatS THAT?? 

Listeners with badgering questions for the expert. You ready?

ANGELO: Absolutely

DIDI: Hi my name is Didi, I’m 9 years old. Do any bats sleep right side up?

ANGELO: Not that we know of. Uh, bats. Bats evolved to sleep upside down, and if you look at them carefully, their knees bend back. [

LULU: Angelo explained they also take off for flight, upside down… just kinda fall off the branch, likely because they are too heavy to easily take off from the ground… And that is an adaptation that all bats have to be able to roost upside down and be able to take off. 

SAM: Hi my name is Sam, from Brooklyn New York, and I’m 4 years old. And my question is: Can bats swim?

ANGELO: Some of them can. I mean, I don't think that there would be, you know, Michael Phelps type of swimming, but they can move in water a little bit.  

Mira: euhhh splashidy splash splash / getting soggy...

LULU - forget doggie paddle i call this the bat paddle, oomf oomf

Sophie:  Um hi my name is sophie and I’m 3 year old, my question is Why are there soooooOoooo many species of bats?

ANGELO: right now we, uh, we are 1,480 something.. So bats generally are about 20% of all of the mammal diversity that we, um, have in our planet.
LULU  20% of all mammals are bats....
ANGELO: That's right. And they live in all sorts of continents, except for like the really freezing ones, of course.

Huh it’s a bat’s world and im just living in it

BADGER: How big was the biggest known bat? (like the size of what other animal)? 

ANGELO: And the largest bat has a wingspan of about six feet. 

LULU: WOA - like the same as Dracula spreading his arms!

ANGELO: YEAH [echoy-y and vampirey. like autotune his yes ... ] and add some little flapping 

ALAN: Evil laugh

ANGELO And then like the body's like a little dog,

LULU: Arf Arf

Stanley: Hi my name is Stanley and I’m years old. Do different bats make different sounds?

ANGELO: Yeah, different bats will echolocate at different levels…[soft: squeak squeak]

LOUD SQUEAK SQUEAK

ANGELO: Leafnose bats, they're typically known as whispering bats,

Whisper: squeak squeak

ANGELO: ‘cus theyre flying thru the trees, and they don’t need a loud echolocation call  BUT Bats that exist in very open spaces, they need to have echolocate really loudly

LOUD SQUEAK SQUEAK

ANGELO:  They just kind of wanna be able to detect. This insects that they're eating, even from a long distance,

EEEKEKKKEKEK

LULU: And those creepy noses that some bats have? Are actually helping them hear! Like an antenna! Anten-nose.

ANGELO: And they use that nose to kind of almost direct where these calls are going. It is pretty crazy. The nose is actually quite movable, you can see them kind of like, almost like DD ding, , like Bewitched
LULU: oh the little  [BRINK BRINK]?
ANGELO: that, that she would move her nose like that.

LULU: Ana what does blood burp smell like?

ANA: Uh like a penny. 

All right, that's where I'm going to leave it. And I'm not going to tell you that vampire bats, in addition to drinking blood, also run really fast on all their legs. That feels so creepy to me. And I'm not going to tell you that because I'm nice.

Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. 

ALAN: It’s Raining Poop!

This episode was reported and produced by Ana González. Did I mention I am the president of her fang club? Her fang, fang club with beautiful sound design by Mira Bat Wintonick, actually Burt-Wintonick. Our Executive Producer is Sarah Sandbach. Our team also includes Alan Goffinski, Tanya Chawla and Joe Plourde. Factchecking by Emily Krieger. 

Ana, any special thanks this episode? 

Special thanks to the American Museum of Natural History and Angela Soto Centeno and the Programme de la conservation of murciologos of Puerto Rico. 

Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation. Fang you!

Also big fangs to Zach Gottehrer-Cohen.

See you in a couple spins of this dirty old planet of ours. Bye.