SG - Let’s Ask the Bat
In short
Lecture- 19 May 2026
- 20.00h
- Impulse Wageningen Campus
- Herman Limpens (Zoogdiervereniging Nederland)
What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
We look into the eyes of a dog and imagine we know what the dog feels and how he or she shows it. The dog feels close to us: we live together, we sleep together, take long walks, and it is also a mammal, like us. The bat is a mammal too, but maybe the one that differs the most from our way of being in the world. At the same time we seem intrigued by this difference in how they orient themselves in the dark, their wings between the fingers, upside down sleeping and often matriarchal social structures.
In this series we try to get closer to the bat looking at how we capture them in our cultures, in our knowledge and in our art. And we look back on the famous article of Thomas Nagel ‘What is it like to be a bat?’.
View more activities in our series
Let’s Ask the Bat
It seems a necessary condition for knowing what it would be like to be a bat to gather as much as possible knowledge about bats. There are over 1400 species of bats: about 200 Microchiroptera and over 900 species of Megachiroptera. All species use active flight. Foraging, commuting, migration, swarming and advertisement behaviour are focused between dusk and sunrise. All micro-bats and a few mega-bat species use echo-orientation. They have excellent night-vision, and most species have exceptional olfactory capabilities. All very different from our human world-experience. Even without mentioning their astounding homing capabilities: home ranges differ from a single tree crown to hundreds of km2, and up to around 2 km high. Migration can cover over 2500 km. Roosting differs from hanging between branches to underground sites, and crevices in trees and buildings. And many species display matriarchal systems and live beyond the age of reproduction. Does cultural ‘knowledge’ become an ecological trait here? What would be the evolutionary advantage of such a matriarchal system?
About Herman Limpens
Ir. Herman Limpens graduated as an ecologist from WUR in 1986. Being interested in bioacoustics and bats he worked on developing acoustic bat surveys using bat detectors as a student with Ingemar Ahlén (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) and Wim Bongers (WUR). After graduation he coordinated an atlas-project mapping occurrence and distribution of bats in the Netherlands based on citizen science (Atlas publicised 1997). This was the first systematic survey of bats ever attempted and engaged almost 600 volunteers. Between 1994 and 1999 he worked in Germany on the development and standardisation of methods to survey bat landscape use and assess impact of development and planning on these protected species. Since 1999 he works as a senior scientist for de Dutch Mammal Society, where bats in development and planning - ranging from building roads to effects of wind turbines and insolation of buildings - and evidence-based mitigation remain the focus topic. His expertise on how to survey bats has led to involvement with assessment of bat species for Red Listing (IUCN/ Min of AFFSN*) and assessment of Species Conservation Status (AFFSN/European Commission). He is the Scientific Focal Point for Eurobats and member of the Chiroptera Specialist Group for the IUCN Species Survival Commission.
Limpens, H.J.G.A., K. Mostert & W. Bongers, 1997. Atlas van de Nederlandse vleermuizen; onderzoek naar verspreiding en ecologie. - KNNV Uitgeverij, 260 pp.
* Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature
Date
20:00 - 22:00