Transcript:

Ambience: Malaysian rainforest at night

“For me, this is often the best bit - the bit where we've done the first check. What we do usually is we just sit down for ten minutes and wait, and then we check the traps on the way home.”

Welcome to Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries, a glimpse of the world of science from the inside. That’s Tigga Kingston, a biologist and bat researcher from Texas Tech University.

“So we're up late. By the time we get back it'll be half-ten, eleven, and then there are some individuals we bring back to do further processing. So usually we get to bed sometime between eleven to twelve, and then we're up at seven and off into the forest again for another three hours or so. So it's a sort of batty life.”

Tigga Kingston and her research team work at a reserve in the Malaysian rainforest. They trap bats in order to learn more about the diversity and ecology of the many bat species found there.

“What we've done is we've just done our first check. We got to the traps at about eight o'clock, and then we checked all fifteen traps and as we got to each one, we plucked out the bats, checked what species they were, sexed them, aged them, and then put a wingband on them. And then let them go, although there's a few we're bringing back to get wing biopsies for some genetic analysis. We get this first flush of bats just after it gets dark, so we have to be at the traps not long after dark. And that's when most of them are flying because most of the insects are out then. But this is one of my favorite times. First check is done. We sit down, turn off our torches, and just listen to the night, and it's really something quite special.”

To hear more about Tigga Kingston’s work, visit pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries are made possible by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.