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~ Marvellous Mothers ~
Mexican Free-tailed Bats live in abundant numbers in southern United States, Mexico and central America. They live in huge colonies in caves and each night the mothers go out hunting, while their equally numerous offspring cling to the cave ceilings. Yet when the mothers return, they can fly directly to their own babies to nurse. How can they recognise their own infant from a million others? By their wonderful sense of hearing and smell.
We did a science experiment to see if we could be good bat mothers and successfully use our sense of smell and hearing to locate our babies. We formed pairs and decided who would be 'mother' first. The baby needed to invent a unique cry and the mother had to 'learn' it. Each baby was also given a scent. There were ten scents in all: Vanilla Essence, Almond Essence, Peppermint, Strawberry, Vicks VapoRub, Dettol, coffee, vinegar, talcum powder and perfume. The scent was on a cotton wool ball which the baby held in front of its body. The mother needed to 'learn' this too. Then the mothers were blindfolded to simulate darkness and on a given cue, all the babies started crying.
It was a tough task in all that noise and confusion but every mother eventually found her own baby, some more quickly than others.
Good mother!
Then we changed over, the new baby had to invent a cry and receive a scent. Oh no, Jamie's mother's going the wrong way and Mikayla's not very happy with her smell. Wonder what it is?
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When I was the mother, my
baby was saying "Me me me me me!" and her smell was Vicks VapoRub.
It was easy to track her down because she was loud and her smell was
strong, very, very strong so I found her fast. By Ruby
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When I was
the mother it was extremely hard and a tiny bit easy. I was smashing
and crashing about but I got to my baby in the end. My baby's scent
as Dettol and his sound was "Brum, brum!" I smelt him from a mile
off. I had a lot of fun but I had smelly fingers from the Dettol. By Mikayla
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When I was the mother it
was extremely hard because the room was noisy. It felt like the sun
and lights were not there. When I was the baby I had to make a
unique cry. Mine was "Eek, eek, eek, eek!" My partner's was "Eeeeek,
eeeeek!" I had a lot of fun doing science. By Brodie
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When I was the mother, it
was extremely hard. Holden was the baby, his smell was Vanilla
Essence and his sound was "Roof, roof!" but it was hard for me
because Holden was not loud enough. By Cameron
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When I was the mother it
was easy because my baby was at the front. Her smell was Almond
Essence and her cry was "Kaka kaka!" When I was the baby, my smell
was Vicks VapoRub. It was a strong smell. My sound was "Mimi, mimi!"
My partner was Ruby, she was a good partner. I was close to the
back. By Caitlin
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When I was
the mother, it was really hard because we had to walk around the
Music Room. It was really noisy. I nearly ran into someone. Our
smell was Strawberry abut our cry sounded the same as someone else's
so that made it really hard. By Levi
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When I was
the mother, I had to close my eyes and get blindfolded. It was very
hard to find my child. When I found him I was relieved. His smell
was bitter, it was talcum powder. His cry was "Teetee twee twee!" It
was very noisy in the Music Room. My ears hurt so much. When I found
him I said "Phew!" By Brock |
