Boring Facts About Bats to Fall Asleep To

In this calm and deliberately boring episode, you'll listen to hundreds of quiet facts about bats, the only mammals that truly fly, small furred creatures that spend their days hanging quietly upside down and their nights slipping through the dark on leathery wings. We take a slow and unhurried look at what a bat actually is and how it lives, since it is a warm-blooded, furred mammal like us, yet its wings are really long fingers stretched with thin skin, and many bats find their way and hunt in complete darkness by listening to echoes. Along the way, we cover the many kinds of bat, from tiny insect-eaters to large fruit bats, why they hang upside down, how they sleep away the day in caves and hollows, what they eat and how much, and the gentle, patient way they raise their pups. We look gently at how a bat "sees" with sound, why hanging upside down actually costs it almost no effort, and why the old sayings about blind, eerie bats are mostly myths. There are many overlooked details, including how a single bat can eat thousands of insects in one night, how fruit bats quietly pollinate flowers and scatter seeds through the forest, why most bats are shy and harmless, and how they survive winter by sleeping or traveling. Nothing here is dramatic, and nothing needs to be remembered. Tonight, as you listen, you can simply rest inside the thought that even the most ordinary subject contains more quiet details than anyone could ever notice at once.