Steve Wildsmith pondered the question… “How many bat species would you guess we have around Maryville College?” Well, thanks to the research of senior Molly Bailey, we have a reasonably reliable answer to that question: 11!
Molly Bailey ’26 remembers following a group of young campers one evening when they turned their canoes toward the boat ramp at Nickajack Lake and she says, “The cave exploded.” Bats not explosives! A colony of gray bats, estimated to number more than 100,000, famously calls the cave home.
Visitors to the Nickajack Cave Wildlife Refuge can walk down to the observation deck on summer evenings and watch the bats take flight to feed. As a fifth-grader, Bailey was on the water with fellow campers from the Tennessee Aquarium. In that moment, her fascination with bats — which continues to this day and into her Maryville College Senior Study — was born.
“One of the activities we did was canoeing on the lake with the bats,” said Bailey, an Environmental Science major. “Basically, we canoed out to the cave right before sunset, and as we turned around and headed back to shore, thousands of bats headed back with us, swooping down and catching insects out of the water. Ever since then, I have found the species fascinating, and I am so incredibly grateful to get to study them.”
With guidance from Biology Professor Dr. Dave Unger, Bailey’s Senior Study — an integral part of the MC experience in which students conduct faculty-guided research in their major fields of study — sets out to identify differences and density in bat species in the Maryville College Woods vs. the College’s campus.
Given the number of older buildings and the bucolic nature of the Maryville College campus, bats have long found nesting places at MC, sometimes to the annoyance of the humans with whom they share the institution. A decade ago, renovations to the College’s oldest building, Anderson Hall, meant the forced relocation of bat inhabitants — primarily big brown and Brazilian free-tailed — from the bell tower and attic of that facility as well, Unger pointed out.
“This then is the entire reason for this study, to try and identify what species we have flying around campus and what structures they seem to be drawn to,” Unger said. “Molly mentioned she wanted to study bats but didn’t really know where to start. This is where our Biology 351 course, the first half of our standard Senior Study series, comes in. That course allows students to explore possibilities and develop their own project.
After the echolocation recorders arrived, Bailey installed them near or on the Sutton Science Center; the College’s steam plant; Scotland Yard (the baseball field); Honaker Field (the football field); Crawford House, home of Mountain Challenge; and in the Woods, the Knoll Orchard, the Log Bridge and at the House in the Woods. These devices are used to track high-frequency sounds outside the range of human hearing,
So far, Bailey said, she’s identified 11 different bat species recorded on the echolocation devices (including her personal favorite, the hoary bat), with the numbers of each split relatively evenly between campus and the MC Woods. Given that there are only 11 to 13 species in the entirety of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Unger pointed out, that number is “very surprising.”
“I am working on an activity analysis, and I expect to see more noticeable differences in activity in the woods and on campus,” Bailey added. “So far, we are receiving the most consistent calls concentrating on the monitor located at the steam plant. This makes sense, because it is in the middle of three buildings with known roost sites. As far as concentrations in the Woods, so far, the monitor at the Log Bridge has been picking up the highest concentrations.”
Every 10 days or so, Bailey makes the trek to each monitor to swap out SD cards, inserting fresh ones and downloading data from those that have been recording. She’ll continue to collect and analyze through March and then, in April 2026, she’ll present her research and her findings at the Natural Sciences Symposium, held in the spring and fall for students in the majors of MC’s Division of Natural Sciences.
Upon completion, Unger pointed out, Bailey’s work will serve as a foundation study that reveals how diverse the bat species on campus are, because the initial data will help future student researchers and their faculty mentors answer several important questions: What’s the status of each species? What resources do they need? Are there actions that can be taken on campus to meet those needs?
Maryville College is a nationally ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges, located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville. Maryville College offers more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”
Karen Eldridge, Executive Director of Communications: karen.eldridge@maryvillecollege.edu.
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