Why Do Bats Land Upside Down?
BrainStuff
iHeartPodcasts
3.9 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2021
⏱️ 6 minutes
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Summary
Bats take off and land from an upside-down position -- and researchers have figured out how (and why) they accomplish this. Learn more in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/how-bats-land-upside-down.htm
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Paul Muldoon, a poet who over the past several years has had the good fortune to record |
| 0:07.9 | ours of conversations with one of the world's greatest songwriters, Sir Paul McCartney. |
| 0:14.0 | The result is our new podcast, McCartney, A Life in lyrics. |
| 0:20.6 | Listen to McCartney, A Life in lyrics on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever |
| 0:28.5 | you get your podcasts. |
| 0:32.1 | Welcome to Brain Stuff, a production of iHeart radio. |
| 0:36.4 | Hey, Brain Stuff, Lauren Volabom here. |
| 0:39.8 | Bat's fly head first, belly down, wings stretched out to the side just as you might expect. |
| 0:46.6 | So how do they land upside down, a position that requires the mid-air acrobatics of a circus |
| 0:52.5 | flyer? |
| 0:54.9 | Well, before we answer that question, we first need to look at why bats would even want |
| 1:00.1 | to land upside down to begin with. |
| 1:02.3 | No other flying animal lands this way. |
| 1:04.5 | Why not just land like birds do with their feet firmly under their bodies? |
| 1:09.8 | The short answer is because bats wouldn't be strong enough to take off if they were |
| 1:14.0 | sitting upright. |
| 1:15.7 | Their wings don't produce enough lift, and their legs are too short to run along the ground |
| 1:20.1 | to generate enough speed to get them into the air from a head above feet position. |
| 1:25.5 | Instead they climb up high and literally fall into flying. |
| 1:29.9 | By landing and roosting upside down, they're ready to take flight if something threatens |
| 1:34.6 | their sleep. |
| 1:36.7 | So that's the why. |
... |
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