As the Northern Hemisphere shifts into fall, days grow short and nights grow long. It’s the spooky season and time for Halloween when the imagination drifts to witches, ghosts and things that go bump in the night—like vampires and bats.

But Merlin Tuttle, one of the world’s most respected experts on bats and author of The Secret Lives Of Bats: My Adventures With The Most Misunderstood Mammals, argues we have got it all wrong and sets us straight about the denizens of the night.

Speaking from his home in Texas, he explains why bats have been victims of a bum rap; how Austin has turned a huge bat colony into a tourist attraction; and how he once found himself face to face with