1. Bats Around the World
Approximately 1,000 kinds of bats live around the world. Backlit sections of this world map reveal amazing facts about six of these species and the range of their habitats worldwide.
2. “Bat Prints”
Visitors make crayon rubbings of their favorite bats from six metal etched plates mounted on a hexagonal tabletop.
3. “Echo, Echo, Echo”
Visitors learn about bats’ sonar system, called echolocation, by calling down two cave shafts. Distance can be distinguished by the delays in the returning echoes of their voices. The deep shaft gives a long delay in the echo, with less delay for the echo in the shorter shaft.
4. “I’m All Ears”
Visitors can experience sound through a bat’s ears. The visitor’s head fits between two giant bat ears (nearly 20 times actual size) which collect the ambient room noise. The visitor can tilt the framework up and down, aiming at different parts of the room.
5. “The Nursery Visit”
One of the bat’s most fascinating mammalian characteristics is learned in this visit to a crowded bat roost. A mother bat can find her baby in a nursery roost of more than 500 pups per square foot. Visitors use sound to help the mother bat find her pup by its unique cry.
6. “Feast & Flight”
This interactive video exhibit uses moving footage of a bat flight acrobatics, feeding behaviors, and food sources. Visitors can select a subject, freeze a frame, and slow down the visual images.
7. “The Importance of Being Bats”
This exhibit illustrates the ecological importance of bats to pollination, seed dispersal and insect control. Interlinked displays rotate to reveal the environmental results of ecosystems with and without bats.
8. “One Night’s Meal”
By estimating and measuring foods for fruit- and insect-eating bats, visitors learn about the huge appetites of bats relative to their weight. Models of bats and plastic insects, fruit and nectar can be weighed in a balance scale. Just how much does a bat eat in one night?
9. "Where Bats Live"
These five dioramas display bats in their many hiding places in various natural habitats. Visitors are challenged to see how many bats they can find hidden in these lifelike settings.
10. Large video
Bat flight, diversity and rare beauty are depicted in larger-than-life video. Visitors see the real world of bats with spectacular video footage via a 60-inch rear-screen projection unit.
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