Greetings, batfolk!! My guest today is Dr. Melissa Ingala. Among other things, I talked to Melissa about her projects at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History, why Nancy Simmons is such a batass (that’s b-a-t-ass, hehe), what the heck a microbiome even is and how she studies them in bats, sourcing formaldehyde and locally distilled ethanol from a seedy Peruvian street market where at least a few people have been maimed, and how I, as a plumber, am only one step removed from being a bat biologist. Follow Melissa on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bat_biomes. Visit the Give Bats A Break Linktree https://linktr.ee/GiveBatsABreak to find ALL of the GBAB and GBAP links, including to Apple Podcasts and Podchaser where you can leave a rating and a review! Let me know what you like, what you'd like to hear, and what you think of the show, or shoot me an email at [email protected]. If you dig the song at the intro and outro, it is appropriately named "Bats" and it is by my friend and music producer MNPHST who you can find on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/maniphest-1. Thanks for putting the podcast in your bat caves! I'm looking forward to the next time we get to Give Bats A Podcast together 🦇🎙