Perhaps because they are nocturnal and often live in dark places like caves and attics, bats are unfamiliar or even feared by many people. Yet, they figure prominently in the folklore of many ancient and current societies. In this talk I will dispel myths and discuss a number of extraordinary aspects of the biology of these flying mammals. I will describe how research on these animals has relevance for many issues, such as why bats are important for forest regeneration, how biological clocks can be used to predict lifespan, how some cells evolve to detect infrared radiation, and why vampire bats could be considered the most social nonhuman mammal on the planet.

About the Speaker:

Gerald (Jerry) Wilkinson is a Professor of Biology and Associate Dean at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received a B.S. in Zoology at UC Davis in 1977 and a Ph.D. in Biology at UC San Diego in 1984. After postdoctoral research at the Universities of Sussex, Edinburgh and Colorado, he became an Assistant Professor in 1987 at College Park. Much of his research combines animal behavior, genetics, and evolution, and has involved long-term field and genetic studies on multiple species of New World bats, as well as comparative studies that address a range of topics including cooperation, communication, social learning, migration, sexual selection, and longevity. In addition, he has conducted research in Africa and Southeast Asia on stalk-eyed flies, which he helped develop into a model system for studies of sexual selection and genomic conflict. He received a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher award in 1998 and was President of the Animal Behavior Society in 2007. He is an elected Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was awarded the Gerrit S. Miller lifetime achievement award at the 2019 North American Symposium on Bat Research.
                   
Return to Schedule