To the Bat Cave!!

Have you ever noticed the pictures on the sides of U-Haul trucks and trailers?  They usually promote national landmarks or tourist attractions in the states and provinces.  They call them Super Graphics and you can learn more about them here.  You can even play your own version of the license plate game by seeing how many different states you can spot on road trips.  The newest designs focus more on natural features in each state--like the new one unveiled last weekend for Missouri.  It features a red bat and echolocation.  Apparently U-Haul offers an educational opportunity when it reveals new graphics.  We took part in their Bat program at Onondaga Cave

with more than 100 other homeschoolers (public school kids were invited in the morning so I don't know how many students there were in all).

The Organization for Bat Conservation traveled down from Michigan with their displays and live animals.  The lady below gave a brief power point presentation before introducing us to two special guests...

This is a Big Brown Bat, the "Big" is part of the name to distinguish it from the Little Brown Bat, but you can see that it's really not that large.  The bats of North America are all considered microbats.  The large ones, like you see chasing Indiana Jones,  live in South America and Asia (and are all fruit bats, so Indy really didn't need to run unless he had a banana hidden in his fedora).  Next she brought out the dreaded Vampire Bat ...

who was not much bigger and really nothing to be scared of.  Incidentally, she keeps these bats with her in her motel room and has to feed them.  The Big Brown Bat gets meal worms and the Vampire  Bat drinks cows blood.  My mind wondered to the thought of an unsuspecting hotel maid getting ready to restock the mini-bar and finding vials of blood inside.  What must she think?

The presenter had a little device that could detect ultrasound and play it in a frequency that humans can hear.  These bats were so used to being handled and being around humans that they were very quiet, but when she fed the meal worms the brown bat started clicking.  I don't know if it was searching for more food or just knew it was time to perform.

Our next learning station was outside.  A large tent was filled with over sized models of bat heads (which really don't seem aerodynamic up close), stuffed bats, free shirts featuring the bat Super Graphic and more.

Here's my Schnickelfritz seeing how loud a tent full of kids can be when you have over sized ears.  He's pretty sensitive to loud noises anyway so the grimace on his face is real.

Here we're learning how scientists capture and study bats.  Each child had a bag with a toy or model bat inside.  They had to weigh the bat and describe it and then the volunteer would find the species in her guide book  (it helped that she knew what the answers were supposed to be in case the descriptions weren't accurate).

Finally we got to go in the cave.  I think it's more beautiful than Meramec Caverns and the lighting is natural--not the colored lights that M.C. uses.  We had a shortened tour (but it was FREE so I'm not complaining).  When we turned around to work our way back out of the cave, the guide asked if any of us has spotted the dormant bat on our way in.  It turns out we were all oblivious to a bat sleeping just a few inches away from our heads.  On our return trip, the guide pointed it out with his flashlight.

I'm sad to say that White Nose syndrome has been detected in Missouri caves this year.  The fungus doesn't kill the bats directly, but apparently irritates the bats so they wake up from hibernation during the winter.  They use up fat reserves trying to remove the fungus or search for insects to eat and end up dying of starvation.   In an effort to slow the disease, the Cave State may end up having to close caves to the public.  I'm not what you'd call a tree-hugger, but I'd hate to lose access to such wonders of God's creation (or have to deal with all the extra bugs that now won't be eaten if the bat population plummets).  So check out the Organization for Bat Conservation and see how you can help.  In the meantime, look for a Missouri Bat on a U-Haul on your next road trip.

Meramec Caverns

If you've traveled on Highway 44, you've probably seen the signs for Meramec Caverns.  Heck, I've seen an advertisement on Highway 70 in Indiana.  I've always found it a little too expensive to go, but recently the privately owned cave advertised a half price day.  Schnickelfritz got his birthday trip to the cave a few months early.

I believe the cave was the first tourist attraction on Route 66, although it's been attracting people long before that.  It once held a gun powder factory in the Civil War (thanks to all the bat guano).  Artifacts found in the cave are linked to a robbery by the infamous Jesse James.  Some areas are big enough to hold square dances (the buggies were parked around the perimeter of the "room"). 

Outside the cave were more activities--free and half price.  There were bouncy houses, a train made out of metal barrels pulled by a John Deere, a small camp of Civil War re-enactors (complete with cannon).  Fritz learned about the current danger facing bats, white nose syndrome, and made a free bat house to mount on our barn.

The big attraction (well, besides the cave) was the new zip line that takes adventuresome souls across the Meramec River--twice. This also seems to be the rage in Branson right now.   I wonder how they felt with the cannon going off beneath them.  Fortunately, Fritz is still too young for such sport.  I guess that will be a later birthday wish.

Underground

We've had a string of days in the high 90's around here (and trust me, this is not a dry heat).  Heat indices have been around 110.  The heat wave broke two days ago, still it would take something pretty special to get my son and I to dress in long sleeve shirts and long pants in the middle of the afternoon.  In this case is wasn't just special, it was cool ......about 58 degrees to be exact--the temperature of cave.

One of Missouri's nicknames is The Cave State, with over 3000 caves on the registers.  There are several  "show caves" like the one Mark Twain made famous in Tom Sawyer or Meramec Caverns with its ads painted on barn roofs as far away as Indiana.  Fritz and I were going to a cave "open house" sponsored by the Dept. of Conservation,  so no electric lights or paved walkways,  In fact, here is the way the conservation newsletter describes it:

This hands-on exploration requires crawling on your stomach for several feet. Wear long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and bring a flashlight. Helmets will be provided.

I had reservations as I was making reservations...lately Fritz has been afraid of dark hallways and the dark waterslide tunnel; what would he do when he experienced total darkness?  Would we see bats  and would they scare him?  I read him the description and asked if he wanted to try this and he answered yes.

There were 14 of us fitting helmets and checking flashlight batteries at the conservation center.  We followed a paved path for several hundred yards and then diverted across a dry creek bed and up a hill till we came to a rock wall with what appeared to be a cage sitting in front...but where was the opening?



 As our guide fiddled with the padlock, he explained that this was a "bathtub entrance," so named because you had to sit down as if you were in a tub and then slide feet first "down the drain."  He went on to say that no one had ever gotten physically stuck in the cave but getting an arm wedged or a helmet hitting the top of the opening can lead to people getting mentally stuck.  I looked down at my son to see if there was any apprehension...  Nope, as soon as our guide had disappeared Fritz hopped into the cage to pursue.

Having just seen my son swallowed up by a hole in the ground I realized that I was the one feeling apprehensive and projecting it on him.  I approached the opening and here's what I saw:



The arrow marks the "bathtub drain"

 At the bottom was just enough room to lean forward and switch from moving feet first to crawling on your belly at least ten feet and going around a corner.  Fritz, at 57 pounds and 48 inches didn't even realize this was an obstacle.  I felt a sudden thankfulness that I'd lost 20 pounds from walking the dog this year and wondered if 20 was enough.  But eventually I was sitting beside Fritz in the "twilight zone" of the cave as we waited for the others.

The twilight zone, yes there really is such a place, describes the area of a cave where there is still some light from the entrance.  You may be able to see the silhouette of your hand in front of your face.  Here we got our lecture on the three types of animals we might find in the cave. 1) Trogloxenes (cave guests) are creatures that usually live outside caves but may take shelter in one.  2) Troglophiles (cave lovers) live part of their lives in the cave and part outside.  Bats fall into this category.  The troglophiles we saw today were a millipede and several salamanders.



A salamander wishing the trogloxene with the camera would move on

The third category is troglobites (cave dwellers).  These are the creatures with no eyes and no pigment.  The guide said he'd even seen some that were transparent and you could see their internal organs, but there weren't any in this cave.

We went through another passage, this one not as tight a squeeze but it was at a 45 degree angle.  At times it was easier for me to roll across the rock formations, although Fritz was able to walk through bent over.





Now we were in the dark zone.  As expected, the guide invited everyone to turn off their lights and experience total darkness.  At the same time he had everyone move their hands forward and backward in front of their faces while making a "shh" sound.  Although we couldn't see anything we could detect a change in sound as our hands moved.  This was as close as we could come to experiencing the echolocation used by bats.  Here's where we learned two things that Fritz remembered when retelling his experience to Daddy (why do boys always hone in on the "gross" stuff?)

First, in the outside world the bottom of the food chain starts with plants converting the sun's energy.  But in caves there is no sun and no plants.   The troglophiles, particularly bats, who go outside the caves to eat return to the caves and deposit guano (children ask your parents).  This starts the cave food chain.  Algae can form on the guano and insects may eat one or the other or both.

Second, bats are beneficial creatures that can eat up to 2000 mosquitoes in an hour.  Some bats have better hunting nights than others. The ones that haven't done so well may actually have burned more energy in hunting than they were able to consume.  This presents a problem when returning to a cool cave to wait until feeding time comes around again.  So bats practice "Reciprocal Altruism."  If a bat has had a good night and notices a neighbor's tummy rumbling, it will regurgitate some of its meal for the neighbor.  The neighbor, having a good memory, will return the favor when the tables are turned.

With those two bits of information our cave tour was over.  Our guide informed us that there were two paths back to the entrance.  The first, the chute,  was short and straight but the catch was it was designed for very skinny people.  "Think Gwyneth Paltrow," he said.  The second was the path we had taken to get in--slightly bigger but involving a lot of crawling and flexiblity.  "Think pilates," he said.  "Make your choice and I'll be the last one out." The words were still echoing in the cavern when Fritz announced he was heading down the chute.



 Another salamander and "The Chute"

I shouted to his disappearing ankles "I can't follow you that way," thinking this would make him turn back.  Nope, he yelled back "I'll see you at the top, Mama," and kept right on going.  Two other boys were not going to be shown up by a six year old so they headed out the chute next.  I sat there for a second waiting for a surprise option three--the one for middle-aged women who wished they had a better exercise regimen.  When no other option was presented I headed towards the "pilates" path with all the other women who knew they were no Gwyneth Paltrow.  At least we had the comfort of knowing we had all made it in this way and since we hadn't eaten in the cave, we should all fit on the way out. 

It did seem harder--was that just the power of suggestion playing with our heads?  I was stuck in a traffic jam as women tried to contort themselves back up the bathtub drain.  I could hear Fritz outside sharing all his discoveries with a grandmother who stayed at the entrance. 

So we both learned something today: Fritz learned about the ecosystem of a cave and I learned that my little boy is growing up and I need to let him.