RESOURCES FOR KIDS

The Smithsonian Bat Lab was so happy to team up with Paige Towler at Smithsonian Press to publish Baby Bat Bedtime, a children's book about a baby bat who realllllly does not want to go to sleep! Inspired by research conducted by Ahana Fernandez and Mirjam Knörnschild with the greater sac-winged bat, Saccopteryx bilineata, on Barro Colorado Island and in Gamboa, Panama, the book ends with facts and photos, sharing the amazing lives of bats and revealing how they are not so different from humans in their family behavior.

We were delighted for Ian Cooke of Cooked Illustrations and his amazing team to animate this publication on differences in sexual selection pressures - and predation and parasite risk - in urban versus forest populations of túngara frogs! Halfwerk W, Blaas M, Kramer L, Hijner N, Trillo PA, Bernal XE, Page RA, Goutte S, Ryan MJ, Ellers J. 2019. Adaptive changes in sexual signaling in response to urbanization. Nature Ecology & Evolution. PDF
With funding from American Women’s History Initiative Programming and Education Fund Award from the Smithsonian on ‘How to Be a Scientist: Smithsonian Women as Career Role Models,’ Cody Coltharp, a Digital Interactive Designer at Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access, designed a video game based on our research on frog-eating bats and their prey! This two-player interactive game and all the associated learning activities aligned to Next Generation Science Standards are available for free in English and in Spanish.

Thanks to illustration and writing by artist Damond Kyllo with animation by Andrew Quitmeyer, the bat-frog book has come to life! Check out both the English and Spanish versions of this video animation below, and learn about the stunning diversity of bats, the senses they use to navigate their environments, and their ingenious strategies for finding prey.
Click here to see a pdf of the book. Or better yet, print one of your own! Follow these printing instructions. English and Spanish versions of the book are here:

BATCOPTERS AND BATPLANES: To learn about the diversity of bat wing shapes and how they affect maneuverability, foraging behavior, and ecological niche, print and share this learning resource created by Geetha Iyer, Jenna Kohles, Imran Razik, and Jimena Víquez with help from the Gamboa Bat Lab. Excellent for Middle School ages, students learn to calculate wing aspect ratios and think about their effect on diet and foraging. Also available in Spanish.
We have also combined forces with Smithsonian Press to publish several bat children's books over the years!