You bring out the music in me!
A cluster of endangered Indiana bats (Myotis sodalis). Photo by R. Andrew King for USFWS. Find more great photos at whitenosesyndrome.org.

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I found an interesting article about music and bat sounds.

In 2018, musician Stuart Hyatt went on a field trip with his son to the Great Smoky Mountains and observed bats. Since humans can’t hear the frequency that bats use while echolocating, the park ranger used a bat detector to hear the bats. Bat detectors translate bats' ultrasonic calls into sounds audible to humans. After listening to the bats’ unique sounds, Hyatt was inspired to record them. With a grant from National Geographic, he traveled with scientists to rural Indiana. Using ultrasound recorders, Hyatt recorded sounds of Indiana Bats hunting and sent the sounds to composers. These composers transformed the bat sounds to music. By listening to many of the songs on the album, you can hear the plight of the Indiana Bat. Indiana bats were placed on the endangered species list in 1967. They were considered a sucesss tory and were under review to come off the list. But with the arrival of White Nose Syndrome, these bats are still endangered.

The album is on Spotify, and you can find the link to the article here (the article also has the link to the Spotify playlist).

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