Adapted from Project Wild by Julie Sacco, Chicago Wilderness education coordinator, the Nature Conservancy, and Bat Facts from Stan Gehrt, wildlife research biologist, Max McGraw Research Foundation

In this children’s game, explore the hunting technique used by the only mammal capable of true flight. Bats find insects by echolocation. The bat emits a pulse of high-frequency sound. Humans cannot hear it. The bat listens for echoes bouncing off nearby objects and uses the echoes to determine the item’s distance, size, shape and surface texture. Even though bats depend mostly on their big ears, they do have eyes and see quite well; no bat is blind.

More than 99 percent of bats are free of rabies, despite their sinister reputation. Our area has two types of bats. Solitary roosters red bat roost in trees—in cavities, and under bark or leaves. Colonial roosters like the little brown bat roost in colonies of a few hundred to several thousand. Since we don’t have caves, which these bats like, they will roost in picnic shelters, unused parts of buildings, or tree cavities. Little brown bats often hunt above lakes, ponds, and streams, zipping back and forth repeatedly through swarms of aquatic insects. They prey on moths, midges, caddisflies, mayflies, small beetles, and mosquitoes.

A few bats will overwinter here in abandoned buildings and garages, usually big brown bats or hoary bats, but most do not.

Just a blindfold for the bat who must rely on his/her use of sonar (instead of sight) to echolocate the moths.

This activity will work with as few as two people or as many as want to be moths.

1. Allow enough open space outdoors or indoors so that running around and “tagging” can be done safely by the blindfolded “bat”.
2. Without talking, the moths should join hands to form a circle around the blindfolded bat. As they release each other’s hands, the moths should “fly” away silently and separately from other moths. While the moths are flying away, the bat should slowly spin itself around a few times being careful not to get dizzy and lose balance. This process should only take 5-10 seconds.
3. When the children are in their places, the bat should emit a “beep” and all the moths should respond with one long, drawn out “sshhhhh” sound (wingbeats). The blindfolded bat will use this sound as a clue to the moth’s location. The “sshhhhh”-ing shouldn’t necessarily be done in unison and should only take a few seconds for everyone to complete.
4. The blindfolded bat must now “echolocate” the moths by searching for the source of one of the original “sshhhhh” sounds. While the bat is “flying” around the area searching for the insects, the moths must hold still and be quiet or they will be caught (“tagged”).
5. When a moth is “tagged” by the bat, that moth is considered to be the bat’s dinner and is therefore out of the game. That moth should step outside the playing area.
6. At this point, all remaining moths have a chance to change locations. The bat stays at the spot where he “ate” the moth just caught. He spins himself around again while the remaining moths fly to new hiding places. From their new locations, the bat should again beep and the moths again emit a long, drawn out “sshhhhh”, and the process resumes.
7. Play continues until all moths are echolocated and eaten by the bat or the bat is too tired to hunt for dinner any more. Of course, the bat then risks going hungry while the moths get to live another night.
8. Additional rounds can be played if other children want to have turns as bats.
9. Once the game has ended, discuss what happened and what the activity represents in terms of predator/prey relationships. Some questions you can ask are: What behaviors helped the bat to catch moths? How did the the moths avoid being eaten? What would happen if the bat could not echolocate moths? What animal(s) would prey upon a bat? (Very few — occasionally a falcon can pick one off, or a raccoon may prey on the roost area.)

• Look for bats. Try the first few hours after sunset in spring and summer, but especially in August and September during their migration period. Check around white lights or over bodies of water.
• If you live less than 1/4 mile from water, try putting up a bat house.
• When you are out in the wild, think about food chains and hunter animals. Notice signs of predation — a pile of feathers or fur, owl pellets, etc. As children get older, they can begin to understand that predation is a part of nature. Look for clues that your child is ready before you try to make this point. Many younger children will just be unnecessarily upset by the whole subject.

All Chicagoland bats eat lots of night-flying insects such as moths. An adult male bat eats half its body weight in insects each night, and a female that is nursing young will eat more than her body weight nightly.