Comments on: 10 Million Bats, and David Attenborough

By: dustbuster7000

dustbuster7000 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ok, normally I bite my tongue on this, but since the discussion has wondered off into talk about tons… Why do Americans use the term “metric ton” to refer to a very large amount of stuff? A metric tonne is less weight than standard (imperial) ton.

By: vlu77

vlu77 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

i was going to comment and ask if a crap ton is more than a ton, and got to thinking, hey maybe it’s a real unit of measurement. so, to avoid looking the fool, i googled it and found an urban dictionary entry that said a crap ton is equal to four sh*t loads.

well, color *me* enlightened!

By: danlalan

danlalan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Idiom.

By: Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, but a metric crap ton is actually equal to about 3.25 sh*t loads.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Huge flocks of birds used to be very common (yes, I’m aware that bats are not birds) until we killed them for sport. This is not that unusual in nature and should not be touted as the largest congregation ever. Ok, maybe we can say that its the largest flock to exist past the industrial age, but that’s it. This kind of sensationalism is what drove people to start killing off animals because they feared that they would take over and use up “our” precious resources.

By: wylkyn

wylkyn — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A metric crap ton is also equal to 1000 kf (kilofeces).

By: Dewi Morgan

Dewi Morgan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wiki says they weigh 8-12oz, call it 10 oz. Google says 100,000,000oz is 2834 metric tons, or 3125 short tons. Since we only have the number of bats to 1 significant figure, I think it’s fairly safe to say:

1 metric crap-ton =~ 3000 metric tons.

By: carlosbenjaminwalker

carlosbenjaminwalker — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

title shoulda read metric crap-tonne to really drive home that har-har english feel.

By: Nelson.C

Nelson.C — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A US ton is actually 2000 lbs, so a metric tonne at around 2200 lbs is actually heavier.

By: GeekMan

GeekMan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Nine million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-eight bats…
Nine million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine bats…
10 million! 10 million bats!
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!”

By: Nelson.C

Nelson.C — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Actually, at least one too many “actually’s” there. Actually.

By: nox

nox — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Could the helicopter not fly or would it just be really, really messy?

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is what grocers’ nightmares look like.

By: Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m guessing that level of messy is the same as not being able to fly. You’d lose a lot of your lift cutting through all those bats.

By: thequickbrownfox

thequickbrownfox — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I used to live near a friutbat colony, thousands of them hanging from trees at a peninsula-like bend in Cabramatta Creek.

When walking past them on a hot summer day there was a hellish gust of B.O.

By: Dewi Morgan

Dewi Morgan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wow! And I thought the 1.5M Mexican free-tail bats under the bridge in Austin was a Wonderful Thing :D that is truly an awesome array of fruitbattery.

Still, the Austin ones eat 30,000lbs of mosquitoes and other insects each night, which means Austinites love them. Plus, they roost under a bridge over the river, so no guano problem!

And yeah – those fruitbats are pretty big, so you’d lose a rotor, rather than just some lift. But in a hot air balloon, you’ll just get a few fried bats.

By: Uncle Geo

Uncle Geo — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sir David Attenborough is the very best nature documentary film maker, period. If you liked this you’ll like every minute of footage from every documentary he has produced. I’ve always found myself gasping at the amazing footage and the truly enlightening scripts. He has managed to also capture a great number of first ever nature footage. His distinctive voice is also the most mimicked when people make parodies of nature sequences.

His brother Sir Richard Attenborough directed Jurassic Park and Ghandi, among many other films, and has also starred in films.

By: zikman

zikman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

haha I don’t know why but the idea of having to fly in on a hot air balloon just to film these bats is pretty hilarious.