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| Sharlene Santana holds a Lophostoma silvicolum bat. |
Sharlene Santana is an evolutionary biologist and the new curator of mammals here at the Burke Museum. She studies how behavior, diet, anatomy and function result in bursts of diversification in tropical bats – mostly from Panama, Costa Rica and Venezuela.
Sharlene was born and spent most of her life in Venezuela. Growing up in the tropics fostered her love for animals and interest in their diversity.
Some of the tropical forests where Sharlene has worked no longer exist because they have been cut down. While Sharlene releases most of the bats she studies in the field, she collects some specimens to help preserve the biodiversity of these increasingly threatened habitats. In her research today and other studies in the future, these specimens in collections will help answer questions that haven’t even been asked.
I recently sat down with Sharlene to ask her why and how she studies bats.
