How One Little Yellow-Shouldered Bat Became Seven Different Species
What Bat Is That? Biologist Bruce Patterson inspects one of 58,000 bat specimens, representing more than 500 species, housed at the Field Museum of Natural History. Photo by Christopher Kemp Deep within the labyrinthine interior of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, at the end of a cluster of corridors and stairwells, Bruce Patterson stands amid a collection of more than 58,000 bat specimens. The collection at the Field is a microcosm of natural history, told in bats. Patterson strides from one bay of drawers to the next, naming the genera and species contained within each stack. Stopping at random, he opens a drawer: an array of bats from the Neotropics, laid out like a squadron. Each bat is reduced to a stuffed pelt, its wings outspread as if mid-flight,...