He's also photographed them—a statement that doesn't begin to do justice to his work. Tuttle is to bats as Annie Leibovitz is to celebrities. If you've seen a great photograph of a bat, chances are Merlin Tuttle took it.

I got to know Tuttle while researching and writing the story he photographed for the March issue of National Geographic about tropical flowers that use acoustics to attract bat pollinators. (Read "Call of the Bloom" in National Geographic magazine.) He agreed to talk to me about his life with bats and why all of us, like him, should love them.

It's safe to say that it's over a million, but I don't count. Before even completing my Ph.D. degree, I'd probably