If given the choice between having lots of bats (outside your attic) or having lots of mosquitoes, which would you choose? This may be a harder choice for some than others, but hopefully I can persuade you to not only want more bats, but to take steps to make sure there ARE more.

Bats are the only flying mammal in the world. This makes them ideal prey for hawks, falcons, and owls. The ones that don’t get eaten consume up to 1200 insects an hour. A teenage boy would have to eat 200 quarter pound burgers in a single night to compete with most bats. A lot of the bat’s diet includes mosquitoes, which can carry West Nile virus. Bats are so good at eating insects that they have become a friend to farmers by eating enough pests to reduce the need for pesticides. Bats in some parts of the world are also important pollinators.

Unfortunately bats are under pressure from habitat destruction. Some eke out a living in urban areas. There are 1.5 million Mexican Free-Tailed bats living under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas. In order to help out, you may consider putting up a bat house to encourage these voracious insectivores to work for you where you live.

It is easy enough to prevent bats from getting into your attic, and less than one half of one percent of these animals carry rabies. Rabies can only be transmitted by an infected animal's saliva entering through eyes, mouth, or open wounds. Please do not attempt to handle bats or any other wild animal! 

If you’re anything like me, this Michigan shelter-in-place quarantine has been quite the eye-opening experience. While I happen to be very introverted by nature, the lack of human connection during this time has me going a bit stir crazy. At random points in the day I find myself talking to the various plants sprinkled around my apartment. The conversations are a little one-sided, but they got me thinking: does talking to your plants benefit them or you? 

Scientific evidence on this particular subject is somewhat sparse. Although this is not a new theory (Many believe the first mention of this particular ideology is “Nanna oder über das Seelenleben der Pflanzen” by Gustav Fechner) few actual studies have been conducted. In Fechner’s 1848 book, he puts forward the idea that plants have a soul of sorts. Although his premise was founded mostly on his own feelings and observations, it has become the basis for the few studies that exist today. A 2008 study from the National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, Rural Development Administration “identified a set of sound-responsive genes in plants” (1). The study suggests that both genes are responsive to sounds above 125Hz. The typical adult male has a vocal frequency between 85Hz and 180Hz, while the typical adult female has a vocal frequency between 165Hz and 255Hz. Sorry guys, women are just better when it comes to plants! A separate study published in the Journal of Experimental Botany found a link between sound vibrations and several outcomes including: “increase the yields of several crops and strengthen plant immunity against pathogens. These vibrations can also prime the plants so as to make them more tolerant to impending drought.” (2).

While there may not a ton of hard scientific data related to the effect of speech on plants, there is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence! On a 2004 Episode of Mythbusters, seven separate greenhouses were set up with varying levels of noise. Stereos playing loops of speech were set up in the greenhouses; Two of negative speech, two of positive speech, a fifth with classical music and a sixth with intense death metal music. A seventh greenhouse, used as a control sample, had no stereo. The control group grew the least out of the seven after 2 months.

Possibly one of the saddest commercials I’ve seen in recent years (with the exception of the ASPCA ads. The song gets me every time.) is a viral video (3) produced by IKEA last year. It was intended to show the effect of unkind words on children. In the experiment, two plants were isolated in identical, controlled environments and received either positive or negative comments through a speaker. After 30 days, the plant that received negative comments was visibly less healthy. Now obviously this wasn’t a strictly scientific experiment, it was an awareness campaign. It’s entirely possible that there were, lets just say ...outside factors... contributing to that poor plants’ demise. I sincerely hope not, because intentionally killing a plant seems a bit over the top for an ad campaign but this is the world we live in.

Here’s my takeaway: until someone initiates a large scale scientific experiment, we can’t conclude that talking to your plants absolutely will or will not help them grow. Really though, what could it hurt? The worst thing that could happen is people could conclude you’ve gone a bit mad. The Mad Hatter said it best “You’re entirely bonkers! but I’ll tell you a secret: all the best people are.” 

When it comes to beneficial animals, there are some that are much maligned and even a little scary. The one I would like to talk about is North America’s only marsupial, the opossum. Their sharp teeth, hissing, beady eyes, and long hairless tail make them less than cuddly to many, but they are actually a great little animal to have around. 

First of all, like most Americans I drop the "o" and just call them "possums". As possums are generally nocturnal, you’ll rarely encounter them during the day. When a possum feels threatened, the first thing it will do is bare its teeth and hiss. This is a bluff, as possums are not aggressive and non-confrontational. Also, they are so slow moving, you would have to go out of  your way to actually get bitten. And though all mammals can contract rabies, it is very rare in possums due to a lower body temperature than other mammals.

If the bluff fails, it will become paralyzed. People refer to it as playing dead, but this is an involuntary reaction (like fainting goats). It will generally take one to four hours for the animal to recover, so if you find one motionless, and it's not attracting flies, let it be.

What they do for us is eat snakes, mice, rats, snails, slugs, insects, carrion, rotten fruit and garbage, and ticks that cause lyme disease. Possums eat 95% of ticks that try to feed on them, accounting for up to 5000 ticks eaten per animal per year. And with the exploding tick population we are experiencing in Michigan, possums are to be welcomed.

Opossum like to live in secluded places that they don’t have to build. Make sure to eliminate access under decks and porches, don’t leave pet food outside, secure the lids on your garbage, and you’ll probably never know they’re there. Something smooth around the trunk of fruit trees will keep them from getting your fruit, and if your dogs are barking at them at night, it’s because they bark at everything if not trained to behave otherwise. If they get somewhere you don’t want them, gently harass them until they move on and secure the area against their return.

I’m not sure if there are any possums in my neck of the woods, but if there are, they can have all the rodents, carrion, and ticks their hearts desire. And they are welcome to rummage around the Hostas for snails and slugs as well.