Bat researchers Scott C. Pedersen (in a 



Costa Rican field, right) and Rick A. 

 Adams (in Colorado, with a chiropteran 

 friend, above) coauthored "Wings on 

 Their Fingers" (page 48) despite the 3,000 

 or so miles that separate them. Both are as- 

 sistant professors: Adams teaches zoology 

 at the University of Wisconsin at White- 

 water and Pedersen is currently at the 

 American University of the Caribbean 

 School of Medicine, at Montserrat, British 

 West tidies. Pedersen's lifelong interest in 

 aircraft flight led to his study of biological 

 flight systems. Some of his bat research 



has also focused on echolocation. Adams 

 has had a special affection for bats ever 

 since his childhood in Bethesda, Mary- 

 land, when he accidentally killed one with 

 a frisbee. ("Something about the twirling 

 attracts them" he says, "and may distort 

 the readings of their echolocation sys- 

 tems.") The two met during graduate stud- 

 ies at the University of Colorado at Boul- 

 der, where they discovered a mutual 

 interest in bone development. Adams is 

 president and founder of the Colorado Bat 

 Society, which is dedicated both to educat- 

 ing the public about bats and to conserving 



Colorado species. For more on bats, 

 Adams and Pedersen recommend Just 

 Bats, by M. Brock Fenton (Toronto: Uni- 

 versity of Toronto Press, 1 983); America 's 

 Neighborhood Bats, by Merlin Tuttle 

 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988); 

 and Bats: A Natural History, by John Hill 

 and James Smith (Austin: University of 

 Texas Press, 1984). 



A former bus driver and car dealer, 

 forty-three-year-old wildlife photographer 

 Seiichi Meguro (page 76) nightly wan- 

 ders the forests near his home in the 



Kamikawa District of Hokkaido, Japan, 

 searching for suitable subjects. "I was fol- 

 lowing some red foxes over a mountain," 

 he says, "when I encountered an appealing 



little fellow — a flying squirrel — gliding 

 from tree to tree." Fascinated, Meguro 

 spent years observing the squirrels' habits. 

 His "Natural Moment" photographs were 

 taken near Takasu-Town on snowy 

 evenings in January and March, when "an 

 unskilled observer would not even have 

 noticed the gliding squirrels." Using a 

 Canon Fl, with a Canon FD 85mm fl.2 

 lens, and two flashes (one mounted on 

 each side of the camera), he froze the 

 squirrel's flight on Kodachrome 64 film. 

 Meguro takes photographs "in the hope 

 that if people learn more about wildlife, 

 they will not be so thoughtless in destroy- 

 ing habitats for the sake of human conve- 

 nience. Even a very small child does not 

 step on vegetation if he or she knows the 

 name of that plant." Some of Meguro's 

 photographic sequences have been pub- 

 lished in Japan as popular children's 

 books. They include A Fox Called Boro 

 and a Flying Squirrel Called Nenai 

 (Tokyo: Gakken, 1984), and The Forest of 

 Akkamui (Tokyo: Kumon Publishing, 

 1987). 



80 Natural History 1/94 



