They’re great! I think it’s funny because we have LBBs, little brown bats, that are an actual species. In the world of mycology, we have LBMs, little brown mushrooms, which is what we call the hundreds, if not thousands, of similar looking mushroom species that just usually aren’t worth identifying.

I love that the little brown bat is not related to the big brown bat. Weird little fluffballs indeed!

Great question. Bats have a hard time with buildings in general because of flat, vertical surfaces. It’s a physics issue.

When they make their click sound, what typically happens is the click hits a bunch of rough, natural surfaces, and a bunch of click echoes bounce back at different times and from different angles. This is what the bat brain computes to understand its surroundings.

When it approaches a flat, vertical surface at an angle, when it clicks, the echoes bounce off at an angle away from the bat. Since it doesn’t hear anything in return from that area, it thinks there’s nothing there. Bats can still see fairly well so they’ll avoid the area if they can see it in time, but clean glass is clear, leading to bat bonk.

The same thing happens with flat horizonal surfaces, but bats will instinctually interpret that as water. An experiment from about ten years back found that bats interpret any flat, horizonal area they can’t see or echolocate from as water. They’ll even try to drink from it.

My pleasure! LBBs and wrinkle-faced bats are amongst my favorites. Wrinkle-faced bats are weird looking little dudes but they grow their own face masks!

I love me some bats so I’m a walking bat PSA.