We started the meeting this month with the program so that our guest speaker could get back to Greensboro at a reasonable hour. That might have been unnecessary given that her fieldwork with bats and mice has required the ability to adapt to an unusual schedule. Our guest speaker was Matina Kalcounis-Rueppell, PhD, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in UNC Greensboro's Biology Department. The program covered a wide range of information. We got to see spectrograms and hear audibilized recordings (slowed way down) comparing the ultrasonic calls of a bat and a mouse, comparing the voice frequencies of numerous bat species, and tracking the progressing vocalizations of a bat flying in for the kill. We also heard about maternity colonies, hibernacula, and roosts, as well as short-range and migrating flight patterns, the threats posed by White Nose Syndrome, wind turbines, and deforestation, and the difficult work and long hours involved in "batting" out in the field.
After the program and the Q&A we chose to adjourn until our September 22 meeting.
For more information about Dr. Kalcounis-Rueppell's work, visit
The Bat and Mouse Lab website: http://www.mckalcounisrueppell.org/
The fieldblog: http://www.batandmouselab.blogspot.com/
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