BATS MAGAZINE SPRING 2021
CELEBRATING WOMEN IN BAT RESEARCH
Smart and Making an Impact
Eight years ago Dr. Emma Teeling stood before 2,000 people in the Grand Canal Theatre in Ireland’s Dublin Docklands to deliver a “TedX” talk about the evolutionary characteristics of bats. Calmly and with great composure she walked onto the stage, dazed momentarily by the brightness of the theatre’s lights, to shock the audience with this enticing statement:
“The secret to everlasting youth lies deep within the DNA of bats.”
BATS MAGAZINE FALL 2020
SAVING MALAYSIA’S FRUIT BATS
Research group promotes coexistence.
On most weekday mornings Dr. Sheema Abdul Aziz is up early. She suits up in a long-sleeve-shirt and cargo pants — clothes that protect her from Malaysia’s intense sun, and guard against swarms of jungle mosquitoes.
She packs her lunch, takes a quick sip of coffee, and checks the weather from her high-rise apartment in Kuala Lumpur in Peninsular Malaysia. Looking out the window, she sees gleaming glass skyscrapers, domes and minarets of Malaysia’s dominant Muslim faith, upturned roofs of traditional Chinese structures, and European-styled buildings from the country’s colonial period.
BATS MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
MYSTERIES OF THE RAINFOREST
Can bats in Costa Rica adapt to climate change?
It’s nearly midnight in one of the lushest places on earth, the Neotropical montane forests of southern Costa Rica.
Thick clouds deliver a steady downpour, obscuring moonlight and stars. Coniferous and broad-leafed trees (some of which stretch 300 or more feet high), along with a dense undergrowth of ferns and grasses, muffle the sound of the rain. Earlier, the clicking, buzzing and screeching sounds of millions of cicadas was loud, powerful and electric. Now the forest sounds are soft, quiet.