Bats, Bugs & Echoes: Outdoor Campus Bat Bash
Sertoma Park, Sioux Falls, SD, USA
This week, the Outdoor Campus transformed into a bat haven—minus the guano — hosting an educational extravaganza with guest speaker Molly that left kids buzzing like moths under a porch light. With wings flapping and imaginations soaring, young learners dove into the fascinating world of South Dakota’s nighttime superheroes: bats.
And no, we’re not talking about the cape-wearing, Gotham-protecting kind — though these creatures are just as cool.
Echo, Echo!
The biggest hit of the night? An echolocation game that turned the field into a giggling grid of blindfolded “bats” and their buzzing “bugs.” The rules were simple: kids had to use sound cues to find their “prey,” just like real bats do with high-frequency calls. The laughter? Anything but ultrasonic.
Bat Facts That Stuck Like Velcro
With at least eleven bat species fluttering around South Dakota skies — and likely more we haven’t even discovered — there was no shortage of fascinating facts flying around:
Tree Bats like the red bat, hoary bat, and silver-haired bat prefer to hang out (literally) in trees. They’re snowbirds too, migrating south for the winter alongside birds.
Cave Dwellers such as the northern myotis and Townsend’s big-eared bat stick around all year, hibernating underground like tiny, winged hobbits.
The little brown and big brown bats are the real real-estate agents of the bat world—caves in the winter, buildings in the summer.
One standout stat had parents and kids alike wide-eyed: One brown bat can eat 600 mosquitoes in an hour. Suddenly, bats went from “creepy” to “mosquito MVP” in record time.
Bats Need Heroes, Too
Turns out, bats are in trouble. 40% of North American bat species are endangered. The event emphasized that everyone can be part of the solution. Building a bat box, not disturbing hibernating colonies, and sharing knowledge are all simple yet impactful ways to support our flying mammal friends.
Speaking of flying mammals: while flying squirrels may glide, bats hold the exclusive title of the only true flying mammals on Earth. Respect the wings.
From Texas Titans to Backyard Buddies
Kids also learned about the Mexican free-tailed bat colony in Texas, home to 20 million bats that collectively eat their weight in bugs — equivalent to 32 African elephants worth of insects each night. Suddenly, bedtime didn’t seem so important anymore.
As the evening wrapped up with crafts, bat box displays, and a few kids flapping around pretending to sonar-locate their snacks, it was clear the Bat Bash wasn’t just educational. It was epic.
Final Echo
So next time you see a little shadow flutter past your porch light, remember: it might just be one of South Dakota’s hidden treasures, doing its part to keep the mosquito population down and the ecosystem in check.
And if your kids start echolocating at the dinner table? Just smile and blame the Outdoor Campus.