Bat Reproduction, and an Appeal

Dee Dee the big brown bat is a silky burnt sienna brown, and her fur is so soft you almost can't feel it. When I first got her she smelled terrible--a skunky foxy musk that apparently emanated from facial glands. I wondered if I'd be able to stand the stink. Now she's almost odorless, just the faintest sweet peaty scent that's quite pleasant. I didn't understand why that would be until I frightened her one day recently by surprising her when I lifted her towel. She must have been deeply asleep, maybe dreaming of summer evenings and tender moths. She chittered, gaped at me and emanated an incredible wave of musk. Oh! That's why she stank when I first got her--she was afraid. Poor little thing.

Needless to say, I am no longer afraid of her, either. Maybe I stank to her when we first met. But now we understand more about each other.

Chances are very good (probably 90%, based on current research) that DeeDee is storing sperm from an autumnal mating in 2009. Big browns mate before going into hibernation, and the female can store viable sperm for up to four months. One source I found says they store the sperm in the uterus. Birds store it in little side pockets of the oviduct, and then release it to fertilize an egg. Bat babies in Ohio are born in May or June. Here are some photos I found on the Net from a study of big brown bat maternity roosts. Here's a bat carrying a single fetus:



and here's a girl carrying twins.


Both x-ray photos from the Fort Collins Bat Project

I found myself very moved by these photos; they somehow erased the differences between us, and united us as mammals. Perhaps it's because they remind me of my carefully-saved sonagrams of Phoebe and Liam in utero, those perfect skulls, those perfect beaded spinal columns, the sheer wonder of being a live-bearing mammal, being able to have a being within a being.

Now you try to build a sentence that uses "being" four times.

If all goes well, DeeDee will be taken to Columbus for flight conditioning in mid April, and when the weather is warm enough, released right outside the house where she was found, long before she needs to find a maternity roost and give birth to her pup or pups. She knows the neighborhood; she may have lived there for 20 years, for all we know. She'll go back to her life, find a maternity roost with other big brown bats, give birth, and leave her newborn young in a cluster of other babies when she goes out to forage. (I had always thought they somehow flew with the baby clinging to them, but they don't. Catching flying insects is a flip-upside-down, sudden-change-of-direction proposition, a highly acrobatic endeavor, and a new baby would probably go hurtling off the first time Mom caught a moth.)

As much as I'd like to see a baby big brown bat, I absolutely do not want Dee Dee to give birth in a 20 gallon fishtank with a screened top. Please hold onto that sperm for awhile, Dee. Wait to start gestating until we can get you outdoors where you belong.

Brace yourself for teh OMG:

This is a baby big brown bat that has gotten sand stuck to it. It's being given a drink by a rehabilitator. From bestfriends.org

There's something about this baby bat that makes me want to give a long, drawn out squeeeee!!! Kind of a mix of wanting to take care of it and flipping out at how weird it is.


If we can get her to a maternity roost before she delivers, Dee Dee will find her baby by crawling about and listening for its voice among all the other squeaks. She'll lick its face and muzzle before taking it to nurse and sleep with it. Within three or four days, its eyes will open, and in about three weeks the baby will be flying itself. I doubt anyone knows whether Mom brings it insects, the way many songbirds do, for weeks after it starts flying. These are the kinds of things I wonder about bats, coming from my birdy background.

There are other things I wonder about bats. I wrote that line, "Needless to say, I am no longer afraid of her, either" before I heard from several readers, well-informed, virologist/veterinarian readers, about mysterious and apparently magical means of rabies transmission--aerosolized urine? By simply having a bat in your house or bedroom? By having a bat touch but not bite you? Whaa? How exactly does that work? Doesn't an actively rabid animal have to chomp down on you to transmit rabies? Well, nobody really knows. And when you're talking about a disease that's 100% fatal once contracted, who can afford to question it?

Having had bat pee rain down on me in both Guyana and Brazil, it's a wonder I'm still alive. And I think about all the people who live and work in places that have bat colonies--barns and warehouses and churches...spelunkers knee-deep in bat guano...I dunno. The bat seems perfectly healthy, eating well and acting normal. I've taken every precaution, always wearing gloves and long sleeves, keeping the bat tank scrupulously clean, banishing everyone else from the room when I'm handling it, and yet last night I dreamt that Liam chased a couple of kids down on the playground and bit them. I woke with a start. It was horrible. I lay awake each night thinking about it all, wake up feeling tired and punky. I reach for my water glass, wondering if my throat is going to suddenly close up and my fever is going to spike and that'll be it, folks, because by the time you show symptoms of rabies you're already dying.

Dying. Nobody wants to die, and I'm one of 'em. I have a lot to do, a lot more to learn, a lot more to teach. The world is just so wonderful, full as it is of miracles and marvels like these little winged mammals, and I want to show it all to you, to everyone. I wonder if it's all worth it, worrying like that just so I can help a bat.

I should go get the shots. I should scrape up $700 and go get the shots. Chances are, I'll get more bats in future years, and it just makes sense not to have to live in fear. Here's the hard part: I would like to ask for your help. It's probably obvious from the virtually ad-free template that I have resisted any temptation to commercialize this blog, but this feels like a special case. I took on the bat because I wanted to be able to learn about it so I could write about it and share that with you all. I came within a hairsbreadth of punting the animal to someone who knew what they were doing and already had the pre-exposure vaccinations. But I wanted to write about bats. I wanted to understand something more about them. I figured out what I'd gotten myself into well after the fact, and once again you, my readers, informed me, not the other way around. I get just as much out of this experience as you do, and its richness continues to amaze me.

If you would like to help (and any amount would help, and be much appreciated), here's the address:

Julie Zickefoose

Indigo Hill

Whipple, OH 45788

If you prefer PayPal, scroll down to the "DONATE" button at the bottom of the page.

Though the admittedly cryptic address is good (I checked with the Whipple postmistress), I don't know if this appeal will work. I humbly thank you in advance for anything you're able to come up with, and I promise I'll let you know when to stop.