title: Amon Göth

text: Poldek Pfefferberg, another "Schindlerjude" (Schindler Jew), said: "When you saw Göth, you saw death."


title: Amon Göth

text: Göth believed if one member of a work team escaped or committed some infraction, the entire team must be punished. On one occasion, he ordered the shooting of every second member of a work group because one of the party had escaped. On another occasion, he personally shot every fifth member of a crew because one had not returned to the camp. If inmates were caught smuggling food, they were shot. The main murder site at Płaszów was Hujowa Górka ("Prick Hill"), a large hill that was used for mass killings and murders. Pemper testified that 8,000 to 12,000 people were murdered at Płaszów.


title: Amon Göth

text: On 13 September 1944, Göth was relieved of his position and charged by the SS with theft of Jewish property (which belonged to the state, according to Nazi regulations), failure to provide adequate food to the prisoners under his charge, violation of concentration camp regulations regarding the treatment and punishment of prisoners, and allowing unauthorised access to camp personnel records by prisoners and non-commissioned officers. Administration of the camp at Płaszów was turned over to SS-"Obersturmführer" Arnold Büscher. The camp was closed on 15 January 1945. Göth was scheduled for an appearance before SS Judge Georg Konrad Morgen, but due to the progress of World War II and Germany's looming defeat, the charges against him were dropped in early 1945. SS doctors diagnosed Göth with a mental illness, and he was committed to a mental institution in Bad Tölz in Bavaria, where he was arrested by the United States military in May 1945. He was arrested wearing a Wehrmacht uniform, and did not admit to being an SS officer. He was sent to a temporary prison camp located on the grounds of the former Dachau concentration camp. He was later identified by former inmates of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, including Josef Levkovich.


title: Amon Göth

text: After the war, Göth was extradited to Poland, where he was tried by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland in Kraków between 27 August and 5 September 1946. Göth was found guilty of membership in the Nazi Party (which had been declared a criminal organisation) and personally ordering the imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people. He was also convicted of homicide, the first such conviction at a war crimes trial, for "personally killing, maiming and torturing a substantial, albeit unidentified number of people." He was sentenced to death and was hanged on 13 September 1946 at the Montelupich Prison in Kraków, not far from the site of the Płaszów camp. His remains were cremated and the ashes thrown in the Vistula River.


title: Amon Göth

text: In addition to his two marriages, Göth had a two-year relationship with Ruth Irene Kalder, a beautician and aspiring actress originally from Breslau (or Gleiwitz; sources vary). Kalder first met Göth in 1942 or early 1943 when she worked as a secretary at Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory in Kraków. She met Göth when Schindler brought her to dinner at the villa at Płaszów; she said it was love at first sight. She soon moved in with Göth and the two had an affair, but she stated that she never visited the camp itself. Göth's second wife Anna, still living in Vienna with their two children, filed for divorce upon learning of Göth's affair with Kalder. Kalder left for Bad Tölz to be with her mother for the birth of her daughter, , on 7 November 1945. This was Göth's last child. Kalder was devastated by Göth's execution in 1946, and she took Göth's name shortly after his death.


title: Amon Göth

text: In 2002, Hertwig published her memoirs under the title "Ich muß doch meinen Vater lieben, oder?" ("I do have to love my father, don't I?"). Hertwig described her mother as unconditionally glorifying Göth until confronted with his role in the Holocaust. Kalder suffered from emphysema and committed suicide in 1983 shortly after giving an interview in Jon Blair's documentary "Schindler". Hertwig's experiences in dealing with her father's crimes are detailed in "Inheritance", a 2006 documentary directed by James Moll. Appearing in the documentary is Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, one of Göth's Jewish former housemaids. The documentary details the meeting of the two women at the Płaszów memorial site in Poland. Hertwig had requested the meeting, but Jonas-Rosenzweig was hesitant because her memories of Göth and the concentration camp were so traumatic. She eventually agreed after Hertwig wrote to her, "We have to do it for the murdered people." Jonas felt touched by this sentiment and agreed to meet her.


title: Amon Göth

text: Hertwig also appeared in a documentary called "Hitler's Children" (2011), directed and produced by Chanoch Zeevi, an Israeli documentary filmmaker. In the documentary, Hertwig and other close relatives of infamous Nazi leaders describe their feelings, relationships, and memories of their relatives.


title: Amon Göth

text: Jennifer Teege is the daughter of Monika Hertwig and a Nigerian man with whom Hertwig had a brief relationship. She was raised in foster care. She discovered that Göth was her grandfather through Hertwig's 2002 memoirs. Teege addressed her coming to terms with her origins in the book, "My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me" (originally published as in 2013).


title: Amon Göth

text: Göth's actions at Płaszów Labour Camp became internationally known through his depiction by Ralph Fiennes in the film "Schindler's List" (1993). In an interview, Fiennes recalled:


title: Amon Göth

text: Fiennes won a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His portrayal ranked 15th on American Film Institute's list of the top 50 film villains of all time, the highest ranking for a depiction of a non-fictional person. When Płaszów survivor Mila Pfefferberg was introduced to Fiennes on the set of the film, she began to shake uncontrollably, as Fiennes, costumed in full SS dress uniform, reminded her of the real Amon Göth.


title: Cheese

text: Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, milk is usually acidified and the enzymes of either rennet or bacterial enzymes with similar activity are added to cause the casein to coagulate. The solid curds are then separated from the liquid whey and pressed into finished cheese. Some cheeses have aromatic molds on the rind, the outer layer, or throughout.


title: Cheese

text: Over a thousand types of cheese exist and are produced in various countries. Their styles, textures and flavors depend on the origin of the milk (including the animal's diet), whether they have been pasteurized, the butterfat content, the bacteria and mold, the processing, and how long they have been aged. Herbs, spices, or wood smoke may be used as flavoring agents. The yellow to red color of many cheeses is produced by adding annatto. Other ingredients may be added to some cheeses, such as black pepper, garlic, chives, or cranberries. A cheesemonger, or specialist seller of cheeses, may have expertise with selecting the cheeses, purchasing, receiving, storing and ripening them.


title: Cheese

text: For a few cheeses, the milk is curdled by adding acids such as vinegar or lemon juice. Most cheeses are acidified to a lesser degree by bacteria, which turn milk sugars into lactic acid, then the addition of rennet completes the curdling. Vegetarian alternatives to rennet are available; most are produced by fermentation of the fungus "Mucor miehei", but others have been extracted from various species of the "Cynara" thistle family. Cheesemakers near a dairy region may benefit from fresher, lower-priced milk, and lower shipping costs.


title: Cheese

text: Cheese is valued for its portability, long shelf life, and high content of fat, protein, calcium, and phosphorus. Cheese is more compact and has a longer shelf life than milk, although how long a cheese will keep depends on the type of cheese. Hard cheeses, such as Parmesan, last longer than soft cheeses, such as Brie or goat's milk cheese. The long storage life of some cheeses, especially when encased in a protective rind, allows selling when markets are favorable. Vacuum packaging of block-shaped cheeses and gas-flushing of plastic bags with mixtures of carbon dioxide and nitrogen are used for storage and mass distribution of cheeses in the 21st century. Plant-based cheese has a lower carbon footprint.


title: Cheese

text: The word "cheese" comes from Latin ', from which the modern word casein is also derived. The earliest source is from the proto-Indo-European root "*kwat-", which means "to ferment, become sour". That gave rise to ' or ' (in Old English) and ' (in Middle English). Similar words are shared by other West Germanic languages—West Frisian ', Dutch ', German ', Old High German '—all from the reconstructed West-Germanic form "*kāsī", which in turn is an early borrowing from Latin.


title: Cheese

text: The "Online Etymological Dictionary" states that "cheese" comes from "Old English cyse (West Saxon), cese (Anglian)...from West Germanic *kasjus (source also of Old Saxon kasi, Old High German chasi, German Käse, Middle Dutch case, Dutch kaas), from Latin caseus [for] "cheese" (source of Italian cacio, Spanish queso, Irish caise, Welsh caws)." The "Online Etymological Dictionary" states that the word is of "unknown origin; perhaps from a PIE root *kwat- "to ferment, become sour" (source also of Prakrit chasi "buttermilk;" Old Church Slavonic kvasu "leaven; fermented drink," kyselu "sour," -kyseti "to turn sour;" Czech kysati "to turn sour, rot;" Sanskrit kvathati "boils, seethes;" Gothic hwaþjan "foam"). Also compare fromage. Old Norse , Danish , Swedish are related to Latin "broth, sauce, juice.'"


title: Cheese

text: When the Romans began to make hard cheeses for their legionaries' supplies, a new word started to be used: ', from ', or "molded cheese" (as in "formed", not "moldy"). It is from this word that the French ', standard Italian ', Catalan ', Breton ', and Occitan ' (or ') are derived. Of the Romance languages, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Tuscan and Southern Italian dialects use words derived from ' (', ', ' and "" for example). The word "cheese" itself is occasionally employed in a sense that means "molded" or "formed". "Head cheese" uses the word in this sense. The term "cheese" is also used as a noun, verb and adjective in a number of figurative expressions (e.g., "the big cheese", "to be cheesed off" and "cheesy lyrics").


title: Cheese

text: Cheese is an ancient food whose origins predate recorded history. There is no conclusive evidence indicating where cheesemaking originated, whether in Europe, Central Asia or the Middle East. Earliest proposed dates for the origin of cheesemaking range from around 8000 BCE, when sheep were first domesticated. Since animal skins and inflated internal organs have, since ancient times, provided storage vessels for a range of foodstuffs, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to curd and whey by the rennet from the stomach. There is a legend—with variations—about the discovery of cheese by an Arab trader who used this method of storing milk.


title: Cheese

text: The earliest evidence of cheesemaking in the archaeological record dates back to 5500 BCE and is found in what is now Kuyavia, Poland, where strainers coated with milk-fat molecules have been found.


title: Cheese

text: Cheesemaking may have begun independently of this by the pressing and salting of curdled milk to preserve it. Observation that the effect of making cheese in an animal stomach gave more solid and better-textured curds may have led to the deliberate addition of rennet. Early archeological evidence of Egyptian cheese has been found in Egyptian tomb murals, dating to about 2000 BCE. A 2018 scientific paper stated that the world's oldest cheese, dating to approximately 1200 BCE (3200 years before present), was found in ancient Egyptian tombs.


title: Cheese

text: The earliest cheeses were likely quite sour and salty, similar in texture to rustic cottage cheese or feta, a crumbly, flavorful Greek cheese. Cheese produced in Europe, where climates are cooler than the Middle East, required less salt for preservation. With less salt and acidity, the cheese became a suitable environment for useful microbes and molds, giving aged cheeses their respective flavors. The earliest ever discovered preserved cheese was found in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China, dating back as early as 1615 BCE (3600 years before present).


title: Cheese

text: Ancient Greek mythology credited Aristaeus with the discovery of cheese. Homer's "Odyssey" (8th century BCE) describes the Cyclops making and storing sheep's and goats' milk cheese (translation by Samuel Butler):


title: Cheese

text: Columella's "De Re Rustica" (c. 65 CE) details a cheesemaking process involving rennet coagulation, pressing of the curd, salting, and aging. According to Pliny the Elder, it had become a sophisticated enterprise by the time the Roman Empire came into being. Cheese was an everyday food and cheesemaking a mature art in the Roman empire. Pliny's "Natural History" (77 CE) devotes a chapter (XI, 97) to describing the diversity of cheeses enjoyed by Romans of the early Empire. He stated that the best cheeses came from the villages near Nîmes, but did not keep long and had to be eaten fresh. Cheeses of the Alps and Apennines were as remarkable for their variety then as now. A Ligurian cheese was noted for being made mostly from sheep's milk, and some cheeses produced nearby were stated to weigh as much as a thousand pounds each. Goats' milk cheese was a recent taste in Rome, improved over the "medicinal taste" of Gaul's similar cheeses by smoking. Of cheeses from overseas, Pliny preferred those of Bithynia in Asia Minor.


title: Cheese

text: As Romanized populations encountered unfamiliar newly settled neighbors, bringing their own cheese-making traditions, their own flocks and their own unrelated words for "cheese", cheeses in Europe diversified further, with various locales developing their own distinctive traditions and products. As long-distance trade collapsed, only travelers would encounter unfamiliar cheeses: Charlemagne's first encounter with a white cheese that had an edible rind forms one of the constructed anecdotes of Notker's "Life" of the Emperor.


title: Cheese

text: The British Cheese Board claims that Britain has approximately 700 distinct local cheeses; France and Italy have perhaps 400 each. (A French proverb holds there is a different French cheese for every day of the year, and Charles de Gaulle once asked "how can you govern a country in which there are 246 kinds of cheese?") Still, the advancement of the cheese art in Europe was slow during the centuries after Rome's fall. Many cheeses popular today were first recorded in the late Middle Ages or after—cheeses like Cheddar around 1500, Parmesan in 1597, Gouda in 1697, and Camembert in 1791.


title: Cheese

text: In 1546, "The Proverbs of John Heywood" claimed "the moon is made of a green cheese." ("Greene" may refer here not to the color, as many now think, but to being new or unaged.) Variations on this sentiment were long repeated and NASA exploited this myth for an April Fools' Day spoof announcement in 2006.


title: Cheese

text: Until its modern spread along with European culture, cheese was nearly unheard of in east Asian cultures and in the pre-Columbian Americas and had only limited use in sub-Mediterranean Africa, mainly being widespread and popular only in Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and areas influenced by those cultures. But with the spread, first of European imperialism, and later of Euro-American culture and food, cheese has gradually become known and increasingly popular worldwide.


title: Cheese

text: The first factory for the industrial production of cheese opened in Switzerland in 1815, but large-scale production first found real success in the United States. Credit usually goes to Jesse Williams, a dairy farmer from Rome, New York, who in 1851 started making cheese in an assembly-line fashion using the milk from neighboring farms; this made cheddar cheese one of the first US industrial foods. Within decades, hundreds of such commercial dairy associations existed.


title: Cheese

text: The 1860s saw the beginnings of mass-produced rennet, and by the turn of the century scientists were producing pure microbial cultures. Before then, bacteria in cheesemaking had come from the environment or from recycling an earlier batch's whey; the pure cultures meant a more standardized cheese could be produced.


title: Cheese

text: Factory-made cheese overtook traditional cheesemaking in the World War II era, and factories have been the source of most cheese in America and Europe ever since. By 2012, cheese was one of the most shoplifted items from supermarkets worldwide.


title: Cheese

text: In 2014, world production of cheese from whole cow milk was 18.7 million tonnes, with the United States accounting for 29% (5.4 million tonnes) of the world total followed by Germany, France and Italy as major producers (table).


title: Cheese

text: During 2015, Germany, France, Netherlands and Italy exported 10–14% of their produced cheese. The United States was a marginal exporter (5.3% of total cow milk production), as most of its output was for the domestic market.


title: Cheese

text: The carbon footprint of a kilogram of cheese ranges from 6 to 12kg of CO2eq, depending on the amount of milk used; thus it is generally lower than beef or lamb but higher than other foods.


title: Cheese

text: France, Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Germany were the highest consumers of cheese in 2014, averaging per person per annum.


title: Cheese

text: A required step in cheesemaking is separating the milk into solid curds and liquid whey. Usually this is done by acidifying (souring) the milk and adding rennet. The acidification can be accomplished directly by the addition of an acid, such as vinegar, in a few cases (paneer, queso fresco). More commonly starter bacteria are employed instead which convert milk sugars into lactic acid. The same bacteria (and the enzymes they produce) also play a large role in the eventual flavor of aged cheeses. Most cheeses are made with starter bacteria from the "Lactococcus", "Lactobacillus", or "Streptococcus" genera. Swiss starter cultures also include "Propionibacter shermani", which produces carbon dioxide gas bubbles during aging, giving Swiss cheese or Emmental its holes (called "eyes").


title: Cheese

text: Some fresh cheeses are curdled only by acidity, but most cheeses also use rennet. Rennet sets the cheese into a strong and rubbery gel compared to the fragile curds produced by acidic coagulation alone. It also allows curdling at a lower acidity—important because flavor-making bacteria are inhibited in high-acidity environments. In general, softer, smaller, fresher cheeses are curdled with a greater proportion of acid to rennet than harder, larger, longer-aged varieties.


title: Cheese

text: While rennet was traditionally produced via extraction from the inner mucosa of the fourth stomach chamber of slaughtered young, unweaned calves, most rennet used today in cheesemaking is produced recombinantly. The majority of the applied chymosin is retained in the whey and, at most, may be present in cheese in trace quantities. In ripe cheese, the type and provenance of chymosin used in production cannot be determined.


title: Cheese

text: At this point, the cheese has set into a very moist gel. Some soft cheeses are now essentially complete: they are drained, salted, and packaged. For most of the rest, the curd is cut into small cubes. This allows water to drain from the individual pieces of curd.


title: Cheese

text: Some hard cheeses are then heated to temperatures in the range of . This forces more whey from the cut curd. It also changes the taste of the finished cheese, affecting both the bacterial culture and the milk chemistry. Cheeses that are heated to the higher temperatures are usually made with thermophilic starter bacteria that survive this step—either "Lactobacilli" or "Streptococci".


title: Cheese

text: Salt has roles in cheese besides adding a salty flavor. It preserves cheese from spoiling, draws moisture from the curd, and firms cheese's texture in an interaction with its proteins. Some cheeses are salted from the outside with dry salt or brine washes. Most cheeses have the salt mixed directly into the curds.


title: Cheese

text: Most cheeses achieve their final shape when the curds are pressed into a mold or form. The harder the cheese, the more pressure is applied. The pressure drives out moisture—the molds are designed to allow water to escape—and unifies the curds into a single solid body.


title: Cheese

text: A newborn cheese is usually salty yet bland in flavor and, for harder varieties, rubbery in texture. These qualities are sometimes enjoyed—cheese curds are eaten on their own—but normally cheeses are left to rest under controlled conditions. This aging period (also called ripening, or, from the French, "affinage") lasts from a few days to several years. As a cheese ages, microbes and enzymes transform texture and intensify flavor. This transformation is largely a result of the breakdown of casein proteins and milkfat into a complex mix of amino acids, amines, and fatty acids.


title: Cheese

text: Some cheeses have additional bacteria or molds intentionally introduced before or during aging. In traditional cheesemaking, these microbes might be already present in the aging room; they are allowed to settle and grow on the stored cheeses. More often today, prepared cultures are used, giving more consistent results and putting fewer constraints on the environment where the cheese ages. These cheeses include soft ripened cheeses such as Brie and Camembert, blue cheeses such as Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola, and rind-washed cheeses such as Limburger.


title: Cheese

text: There are many types of cheese, with around 500 different varieties recognized by the International Dairy Federation, more than 400 identified by Walter and Hargrove, more than 500 by Burkhalter, and more than 1,000 by Sandine and Elliker. The varieties may be grouped or classified into types according to criteria such as length of ageing, texture, methods of making, fat content, animal milk, country or region of origin, etc.—with these criteria either being used singly or in combination, but with no single method being universally used. The method most commonly and traditionally used is based on moisture content, which is then further discriminated by fat content and curing or ripening methods. Some attempts have been made to rationalise the classification of cheese—a scheme was proposed by Pieter Walstra which uses the primary and secondary starter combined with moisture content, and Walter and Hargrove suggested classifying by production methods which produces 18 types, which are then further grouped by moisture content.


title: Cheese

text: At refrigerator temperatures, the fat in a piece of cheese is as hard as unsoftened butter, and its protein structure is stiff as well. Flavor and odor compounds are less easily liberated when cold. For improvements in flavor and texture, it is widely advised that cheeses be allowed to warm up to room temperature before eating. If the cheese is further warmed, to , the fats will begin to "sweat out" as they go beyond soft to fully liquid.


title: Cheese

text: Above room temperatures, most hard cheeses melt. Rennet-curdled cheeses have a gel-like protein matrix that is broken down by heat. When enough protein bonds are broken, the cheese itself turns from a solid to a viscous liquid. Soft, high-moisture cheeses will melt at around , while hard, low-moisture cheeses such as Parmesan remain solid until they reach about . Acid-set cheeses, including halloumi, paneer, some whey cheeses and many varieties of fresh goat cheese, have a protein structure that remains intact at high temperatures. When cooked, these cheeses just get firmer as water evaporates.


title: Cheese

text: Some cheeses, like raclette, melt smoothly; many tend to become stringy or suffer from a separation of their fats. Many of these can be coaxed into melting smoothly in the presence of acids or starch. Fondue, with wine providing the acidity, is a good example of a smoothly melted cheese dish. Elastic stringiness is a quality that is sometimes enjoyed, in dishes including pizza and Welsh rarebit. Even a melted cheese eventually turns solid again, after enough moisture is cooked off. The saying "you can't melt cheese twice" (meaning "some things can only be done once") refers to the fact that oils leach out during the first melting and are gone, leaving the non-meltable solids behind.


title: Cheese

text: As its temperature continues to rise, cheese will brown and eventually burn. Browned, partially burned cheese has a particular distinct flavor of its own and is frequently used in cooking (e.g., sprinkling atop items before baking them).


title: Cheese

text: A cheeseboard (or cheese course) may be served at the end of a meal before or following dessert, or replacing the last course. The British tradition is to have cheese after dessert, accompanied by sweet wines like Port. In France, cheese is consumed before dessert, with robust red wine. A cheeseboard typically has contrasting cheeses with accompaniments, such as crackers, biscuits, grapes, nuts, celery or chutney. A typical cheeseboard may contain 4 to 6 cheeses, for example: Mature Cheddar or Comté (hard: cow's milk cheeses); Brie or Camembert (soft: cow's milk); a blue cheese such as Stilton (hard: cow's milk), Roquefort (medium: ewe's milk) or Bleu d'Auvergne (medium-soft cow's milk); a soft/medium-soft goat's cheese (e.g. Sainte-Maure de Touraine, Pantysgawn, Crottin de Chavignol).


title: Cheese

text: A cheeseboard long was used to feature the variety of cheeses manufactured in Wisconsin, where the state legislature recognizes a "cheesehead" hat as a state symbol.


title: Cheese

text: The nutritional value of cheese varies widely. Cottage cheese may consist of 4% fat and 11% protein while some whey cheeses are 15% fat and 11% protein, and triple-crème cheeses are 36% fat and 7% protein. In general, cheese is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of calcium, protein, phosphorus, sodium and saturated fat. A 28-gram (one ounce) serving of cheddar cheese contains about of protein and 202 milligrams of calcium. Nutritionally, cheese is essentially concentrated milk, but altered by the culturing and aging processes: it takes about of milk to provide that much protein, and to equal the calcium, though values for water-soluble vitamins and minerals can vary widely.


title: Cheese

text: National health organizations, such as the American Heart Association, Association of UK Dietitians, British National Health Service, and Mayo Clinic, among others, recommend that cheese consumption be minimized, replaced in snacks and meals by plant foods, or restricted to low-fat cheeses to reduce caloric intake and blood levels of HDL fat, which is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. There is no high-quality clinical evidence that cheese consumption lowers the risk of cardiovascular diseases.


title: Cheese

text: A number of food safety agencies around the world have warned of the risks of raw-milk cheeses. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration states that soft raw-milk cheeses can cause "serious infectious diseases including listeriosis, brucellosis, salmonellosis and tuberculosis". It is U.S. law since 1944 that all raw-milk cheeses (including imports since 1951) must be aged at least 60 days. Australia has a wide ban on raw-milk cheeses as well, though in recent years exceptions have been made for Swiss Gruyère, Emmental and Sbrinz, and for French Roquefort. There is a trend for cheeses to be pasteurized even when not required by law.


title: Cheese

text: Pregnant women may face an additional risk from cheese; the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has warned pregnant women against eating soft-ripened cheeses and blue-veined cheeses, due to the listeria risk, which can cause miscarriage or harm the fetus.


title: Cheese

text: Although cheese is a vital source of nutrition in many regions of the world and it is extensively consumed in others, its use is not universal.


title: Cheese

text: Cheese is rarely found in Southeast and East Asian cuisines, presumably for historical reasons as dairy farming has historically been rare in these regions, due in part to low rates of lactase persistence. Paneer (pronounced [pəniːr]) is a fresh cheese common in North India and Pakistan. It is an unaged, non-melting soft cheese made by curdling milk with a fruit- or vegetable-derived acid, such as lemon juice. Its acid-set form, (cheese curd) before pressing, is called chhena. In Nepal, the Dairy Development Corporation commercially manufactures cheese made from yak milk and a hard cheese made from either cow or yak milk known as chhurpi. The national dish of Bhutan, ema datshi, is made from homemade yak or mare milk cheese and hot peppers. In Yunnan, China, several ethnic minority groups produce Rushan and Rubing from cow's milk. Cheese consumption may be increasing in China, with annual sales doubling from 1996 to 2003 (to a still small 30 million U.S. dollars a year). Certain kinds of Chinese preserved bean curd are sometimes misleadingly referred to in English as "Chinese cheese" because of their texture and strong flavor.


title: Cheese

text: Strict followers of the dietary laws of Islam and Judaism must avoid cheeses made with rennet from animals not slaughtered in a manner adhering to halal or kosher laws. Both faiths allow cheese made with vegetable-based rennet or with rennet made from animals that were processed in a halal or kosher manner. Many less orthodox Jews also believe that rennet undergoes enough processing to change its nature entirely and do not consider it to ever violate kosher law. (See "Cheese and kashrut".) As cheese is a dairy food, under kosher rules it cannot be eaten in the same meal with any meat.


title: Cheese

text: Rennet derived from animal slaughter, and thus cheese made with animal-derived rennet, is not vegetarian. Most widely available vegetarian cheeses are made using rennet produced by fermentation of the fungus "Mucor miehei". Vegans and other dairy-avoiding vegetarians do not eat conventional cheese, but some vegetable-based cheese substitutes (soy or almond) are used as substitutes.


title: Cheese

text: Even in cultures with long cheese traditions, consumers may perceive some cheeses that are especially pungent-smelling, or mold-bearing varieties such as Limburger or Roquefort, as unpalatable. Such cheeses are an acquired taste because they are processed using molds or microbiological cultures, allowing odor and flavor molecules to resemble those in rotten foods. One author stated: "An aversion to the odor of decay has the obvious biological value of steering us away from possible food poisoning, so it is no wonder that an animal food that gives off whiffs of shoes and soil and the stable takes some getting used to."


title: Cheese

text: Scientists have debated how cheese might affect sleep. There is some evidence that the tryptophan in cheese can be sleep-inducing, as it is a hormone that reduces stress and stabilizes nerve cells. The high levels of calcium in cheese facilitate the use of tryptophan in the body to produce melatonin, which induces sleep. An antithetical folk belief that cheese eaten close to bedtime can cause nightmares may have arisen from the Charles Dickens novella "A Christmas Carol", in which Ebenezer Scrooge attributes his visions of Jacob Marley to the cheese he ate. This belief can also be found in folklore that predates this story. The theory has been disproven multiple times, although night cheese may cause vivid dreams or otherwise disrupt sleep due to its high saturated fat content, according to studies by the British Cheese Board. Other studies indicate it may actually make people dream less.


title: Cheese

text: In the 19th century, "cheese" was used as a figurative way of saying "the proper thing"; this usage comes from Urdu cheez "a thing," from Persian cheez, from Old Persian...ciš-ciy [which means] "something." The term "cheese" in this sense was "[p]icked up by [colonial] British in India by 1818 and [was also] used in the sense of "a big thing", for example in the expression "he's the real cheez". The expression "big cheese" was attested in use in 1914 to mean an "important person"; this is likely "American English in origin". The expression "to cut a big cheese" was used to mean "to look important"; this figurative expression referred to the huge wheels of cheese displayed by cheese retailers as a publicity stunt. The phrase "cut the cheese" also became an American slang term meaning to flatulate. The word "cheese" has also had the meaning of "an ignorant, stupid person."


title: Cheese

text: Other figurative meanings involve the word "cheese" used as a verb. To "cheese" is recorded as meaning to "stop (what one is doing), run off," in 1812 (this was "thieves' slang"). To be "cheesed off" means to be annoyed. The expression, "Say cheese" in a photograph-taking context (when the photographer wants the people to smile for the photo), which means "smile", dates from 1930 (the word was probably chosen because the "ee" encourages people to make a smile). The verb "cheese" was used as slang for "be quiet" in the early 19th century in Britain. The fictional "...notion that the moon is made of green cheese as a type of a ridiculous assertion is from 1520s". The figurative expression "to make cheeses" is an 1830s phrase referring to schoolgirls who amuse themselves by "...wheeling rapidly so one's petticoats blew out in a circle then dropping down so they came to rest inflated and resembling a wheel of cheese". In video game slang "to cheese it" means to win a game by using a strategy that requires minimal skill and knowledge or that exploits a glitch or flaw in game design.


title: Cheese

text: The adjective "cheesy" has two meanings. The first is literal, and means "cheese-like"; this definition is attested to from the late 14th century (e.g., "a cheesy substance oozed from the broken jar"). In the late 19th century, medical writers used the term "cheesy" in a more literal sense, "to describe morbid substances found in tumors, decaying flesh, etc." The adjective also has a figurative sense, meaning "cheap, inferior"; this use "... is attested from 1896, perhaps originally U.S. student slang". In the late 19th century in British slang, "cheesy" meant "fine, showy"; this use is attested to in the 1850s. In writing lyrics for pop music, rock music or musical theatre, "cheesy" is a pejorative term which means "blatantly artificial" ("OED").


title: Bat

text: Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera. With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out digits covered with a thin membrane or patagium. The smallest bat, and arguably the smallest extant mammal, is Kitti's hog-nosed bat, which is in length, across the wings and in mass. The largest bats are the flying foxes, with the giant golden-crowned flying fox, "Acerodon jubatus", reaching a weight of and having a wingspan of .


title: Bat

text: The second largest order of mammals after rodents, bats comprise about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with over 1,400 species. These were traditionally divided into two suborders: the largely fruit-eating megabats, and the echolocating microbats. But more recent evidence has supported dividing the order into Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, with megabats as members of the former along with several species of microbats. Many bats are insectivores, and most of the rest are frugivores (fruit-eaters) or nectarivores (nectar-eaters). A few species feed on animals other than insects; for example, the vampire bats feed on blood. Most bats are nocturnal, and many roost in caves or other refuges; it is uncertain whether bats have these behaviours to escape predators. Bats are present throughout the world, with the exception of extremely cold regions. They are important in their ecosystems for pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds; many tropical plants depend entirely on bats for these services.


title: Bat

text: Bats provide humans with some direct benefits, at the cost of some disadvantages. Bat dung has been mined as guano from caves and used as fertiliser. Bats consume insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides and other insect management measures. They are sometimes numerous enough and close enough to human settlements to serve as tourist attractions, and they are used as food across Asia and the Pacific Rim. However, fruit bats are frequently considered pests by fruit growers. Due to their physiology, bats are one type of animal that acts as a natural reservoir of many pathogens, such as rabies; and since they are highly mobile, social, and long-lived, they can readily spread disease among themselves. If humans interact with bats, these traits become potentially dangerous to humans. Some bats are also predators of mosquitoes, suppressing the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.


title: Bat

text: Depending on the culture, bats may be symbolically associated with positive traits, such as protection from certain diseases or risks, rebirth, or long life, but in the West, bats are popularly associated with darkness, malevolence, witchcraft, vampires, and death.


title: Bat

text: An older English name for bats is flittermouse, which matches their name in other Germanic languages (for example German "Fledermaus" and Swedish "fladdermus"), related to the fluttering of wings. Middle English had "bakke", most likely cognate with Old Swedish "natbakka" ("night-bat"), which may have undergone a shift from "-k-" to "-t-" (to Modern English "bat") influenced by Latin "blatta", "moth, nocturnal insect". The word "bat" was probably first used in the early 1570s. The name "Chiroptera" derives from "cheir", "hand" and πτερόν"pteron", "wing".


title: Bat

text: The delicate skeletons of bats do not fossilise well; it is estimated that only 12% of bat genera that lived have been found in the fossil record. Most of the oldest known bat fossils were already very similar to modern microbats, such as "Archaeopteropus" (32 million years ago). The extinct bats "Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon" (48 million years ago) and "Hassianycteris kumari" (48 million years ago) are the first fossil mammals whose colouration has been discovered: both were reddish-brown.


title: Bat

text: Bats were formerly grouped in the superorder Archonta, along with the treeshrews (Scandentia), colugos (Dermoptera), and primates. Modern genetic evidence now places bats in the superorder Laurasiatheria, with its sister taxon as Fereuungulata, which includes carnivorans, pangolins, odd-toed ungulates, even-toed ungulates, and cetaceans. One study places Chiroptera as a sister taxon to odd-toed ungulates (Perissodactyla).


title: Bat

text: The flying primate hypothesis proposed that when adaptations to flight are removed, megabats are allied to primates by anatomical features not shared with microbats and thus flight evolved twice in mammals. Genetic studies have strongly supported the monophyly of bats and the single origin of mammal flight.


title: Bat

text: Genetic evidence indicates that megabats originated during the early Eocene, and belong within the four major lines of microbats. Two new suborders have been proposed; Yinpterochiroptera includes the Pteropodidae, or megabat family, as well as the families Rhinolophidae, Hipposideridae, Craseonycteridae, Megadermatidae, and Rhinopomatidae. Yangochiroptera includes the other families of bats (all of which use laryngeal echolocation), a conclusion supported by a 2005 DNA study. A 2013 phylogenomic study supported the two new proposed suborders.


title: Bat

text: The 2003 discovery of an early fossil bat from the 52-million-year-old Green River Formation, "Onychonycteris finneyi", indicates that flight evolved before echolocative abilities. "Onychonycteris" had claws on all five of its fingers, whereas modern bats have at most two claws on two digits of each hand. It also had longer hind legs and shorter forearms, similar to climbing mammals that hang under branches, such as sloths and gibbons. This palm-sized bat had short, broad wings, suggesting that it could not fly as fast or as far as later bat species. Instead of flapping its wings continuously while flying, "Onychonycteris" probably alternated between flaps and glides in the air. This suggests that this bat did not fly as much as modern bats, but flew from tree to tree and spent most of its time climbing or hanging on branches. The distinctive features of the "Onychonycteris" fossil also support the hypothesis that mammalian flight most likely evolved in arboreal locomotors, rather than terrestrial runners. This model of flight development, commonly known as the "trees-down" theory, holds that bats first flew by taking advantage of height and gravity to drop down on to prey, rather than running fast enough for a ground-level take off.


title: Bat

text: The molecular phylogeny was controversial, as it pointed to microbats not having a unique common ancestry, which implied that some seemingly unlikely transformations occurred. The first is that laryngeal echolocation evolved twice in bats, once in Yangochiroptera and once in the rhinolophoids. The second is that laryngeal echolocation had a single origin in Chiroptera, was subsequently lost in the family Pteropodidae (all megabats), and later evolved as a system of tongue-clicking in the genus "Rousettus". Analyses of the sequence of the vocalization gene "FoxP2" were inconclusive on whether laryngeal echolocation was lost in the pteropodids or gained in the echolocating lineages. Echolocation probably first derived in bats from communicative calls. The Eocene bats "Icaronycteris" (52 million years ago) and "Palaeochiropteryx" had cranial adaptations suggesting an ability to detect ultrasound. This may have been used at first mainly to forage on the ground for insects and map out their surroundings in their gliding phase, or for communicative purposes. After the adaptation of flight was established, it may have been refined to target flying prey by echolocation. Analyses of the hearing gene "Prestin" seem to favour the idea that echolocation developed independently at least twice, rather than being lost secondarily in the pteropodids, but ontogenic analysis of the cochlea supports that laryngeal echolocation evolved only once.


title: Bat

text: Bats are placental mammals. After rodents, they are the largest order, making up about 20% of mammal species. In 1758, Carl Linnaeus classified the seven bat species he knew of in the genus "Vespertilio" in the order Primates. Around twenty years later, the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach gave them their own order, Chiroptera. Since then, the number of described species has risen to over 1,400, traditionally classified as two suborders: Megachiroptera (megabats), and Microchiroptera (microbats/echolocating bats). Not all megabats are larger than microbats. Several characteristics distinguish the two groups. Microbats use echolocation for navigation and finding prey, but megabats apart from those in the genus "Rousettus" do not. Accordingly, megabats have a well-developed eyesight. Megabats have a claw on the second finger of the forelimb. The external ears of microbats do not close to form a ring; the edges are separated from each other at the base of the ear. Megabats eat fruit, nectar, or pollen, while most microbats eat insects; others feed on fruit, nectar, pollen, fish, frogs, small mammals, or blood.


title: Bat

text: Below is a table chart following the bat classification of families recognized by various authors of the ninth volume of "Handbook of the Mammals of the World" published in 2019:


title: Bat

text: The head and teeth shape of bats can vary by species. In general, megabats have longer snouts, larger eye sockets and smaller ears, giving them a more dog-like appearance, which is the source of their nickname of "flying foxes". Among microbats, longer snouts are associated with nectar-feeding. while vampire bats have reduced snouts to accommodate large incisors and canines.


title: Bat

text: Small insect-eating bats can have as many as 38 teeth, while vampire bats have only 20. Bats that feed on hard-shelled insects have fewer but larger teeth with longer canines and more robust lower jaws than species that prey on softer bodied insects. In nectar-feeding bats, the canines are long while the cheek-teeth are reduced. In fruit-eating bats, the cusps of the cheek teeth are adapted for crushing. The upper incisors of vampire bats lack enamel, which keeps them razor-sharp. The bite force of small bats is generated through mechanical advantage, allowing them to bite through the hardened armour of insects or the skin of fruit.


title: Bat

text: Bats are the only mammals capable of sustained flight, as opposed to gliding, as in the flying squirrel. The fastest bat, the Mexican free-tailed bat ("Tadarida brasiliensis"), can achieve a ground speed of .


title: Bat

text: The finger bones of bats are much more flexible than those of other mammals, owing to their flattened cross-section and to low levels of calcium near their tips. The elongation of bat digits, a key feature required for wing development, is due to the upregulation of bone morphogenetic proteins (Bmps). During embryonic development, the gene controlling Bmp signalling, "Bmp2", is subjected to increased expression in bat forelimbsresulting in the extension of the manual digits. This crucial genetic alteration helps create the specialized limbs required for powered flight. The relative proportion of extant bat forelimb digits compared with those of Eocene fossil bats have no significant differences, suggesting that bat wing morphology has been conserved for over fifty million years. During flight, the bones undergo bending and shearing stress; the bending stresses felt are smaller than in terrestrial mammals, but the shearing stress is larger. The wing bones of bats have a slightly lower breaking stress point than those of birds.


title: Bat

text: As in other mammals, and unlike in birds, the radius is the main component of the forearm. Bats have five elongated digits, which all radiate around the wrist. The thumb points forward and supports the leading edge of the wing, and the other digits support the tension held in the wing membrane. The second and third digits go along the wing tip, allowing the wing to be pulled forward against aerodynamic drag, without having to be thick as in pterosaur wings. The fourth and fifth digits go from the wrist to the trailing edge, and repel the bending force caused by air pushing up against the stiff membrane. Due to their flexible joints, bats are more maneuverable and more dexterous than gliding mammals.


title: Bat

text: The wings of bats are much thinner and consist of more bones than the wings of birds, allowing bats to maneuver more accurately than the latter, and fly with more lift and less drag. By folding the wings in toward their bodies on the upstroke, they save 35 percent energy during flight. The membranes are delicate, tearing easily, but can regrow, and small tears heal quickly. The surface of the wings is equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cells, also found on human fingertips. These sensitive areas are different in bats, as each bump has a tiny hair in the center, making it even more sensitive and allowing the bat to detect and adapt to changing airflow; the primary use is to judge the most efficient speed at which to fly, and possibly also to avoid stalls. Insectivorous bats may also use tactile hairs to help perform complex maneuvers to capture prey in flight.


title: Bat

text: The patagium is the wing membrane; it is stretched between the arm and finger bones, and down the side of the body to the hind limbs and tail. This skin membrane consists of connective tissue, elastic fibres, nerves, muscles, and blood vessels. The muscles keep the membrane taut during flight. The extent to which the tail of a bat is attached to a patagium can vary by species, with some having completely free tails or even no tails. The skin on the body of the bat, which has one layer of epidermis and dermis, as well as hair follicles, sweat glands and a fatty subcutaneous layer, is very different from the skin of the wing membrane. Depending on the bat species the presence of hair follicles and sweat glands will vary in the patagium. This patagium is an extremely thin double layer of epidermis; these layers are separated by a connective tissue center, rich with collagen and elastic fibers. In some bat species sweats glands will be present in between this connective tissue. Furthermore, if hair follicles are present this supports the bat in order to adjust sudden flight maneuvers. For bat embryos, apoptosis (cell death) affects only the hindlimbs, while the forelimbs retain webbing between the digits that forms into the wing membranes. Unlike birds, whose stiff wings deliver bending and torsional stress to the shoulders, bats have a flexible wing membrane that can resist only tension. To achieve flight, a bat exerts force inwards at the points where the membrane meets the skeleton, so that an opposing force balances it on the wing edges perpendicular to the wing surface. This adaptation does not permit bats to reduce their wingspans, unlike birds, which can partly fold their wings in flight, radically reducing the wing span and area for the upstroke and for gliding. Hence bats cannot travel over long distances as birds can.


title: Bat

text: Nectar- and pollen-eating bats can hover, in a similar way to hummingbirds. The sharp leading edges of the wings can create vortices, which provide lift. The vortex may be stabilized by the animal changing its wing curvatures.


title: Bat

text: When not flying, bats hang upside down from their feet, a posture known as roosting. The femurs are attached at the hips in a way that allows them to bend outward and upward in flight. The ankle joint can flex to allow the trailing edge of the wings to bend downwards. This does not permit many movements other than hanging or clambering up trees. Most megabats roost with the head tucked towards the belly, whereas most microbats roost with the neck curled towards the back. This difference is reflected in the structure of the cervical or neck vertebrae in the two groups, which are clearly distinct. Tendons allow bats to lock their feet closed when hanging from a roost. Muscular power is needed to let go, but not to grasp a perch or when holding on.


title: Bat

text: When on the ground, most bats can only crawl awkwardly. A few species such as the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat and the common vampire bat are agile on the ground. Both species make lateral gaits (the limbs move one after the other) when moving slowly but vampire bats move with a bounding gait (all limbs move in unison) at greater speeds, the folded up wings being used to propel them forward. Vampire bat likely evolved these gaits to follow their hosts while short-tailed bats developed in the absence of terrestrial mammal competitors. Enhanced terrestrial locomotion does not appear to have reduced their ability to fly.


title: Bat

text: Bats have an efficient circulatory system. They seem to make use of particularly strong venomotion, a rhythmic contraction of venous wall muscles. In most mammals, the walls of the veins provide mainly passive resistance, maintaining their shape as deoxygenated blood flows through them, but in bats they appear to actively support blood flow back to the heart with this pumping action. Since their bodies are relatively small and lightweight, bats are not at risk of blood flow rushing to their heads when roosting.


title: Bat

text: Bats possess a highly adapted respiratory system to cope with the demands of powered flight, an energetically taxing activity that requires a large continuous throughput of oxygen. In bats, the relative alveolar surface area and pulmonary capillary blood volume are larger than in most other small quadrupedal mammals. During flight the respiratory cycle has a one-to-one relationship with the wing-beat cycle. Because of the restraints of the mammalian lungs, bats cannot maintain high-altitude flight.


title: Bat

text: It takes a lot of energy and an efficient circulatory system to work the flight muscles of bats. Energy supply to the muscles engaged in flight requires about double the amount compared to the muscles that do not use flight as a means of mammalian locomotion. In parallel to energy consumption, blood oxygen levels of flying animals are twice as much as those of their terrestrially locomoting mammals. As the blood supply controls the amount of oxygen supplied throughout the body, the circulatory system must respond accordingly. Therefore, compared to a terrestrial mammal of the same relative size, the bat's heart can be up to three times larger, and pump more blood. Cardiac output is directly derived from heart rate and stroke volume of the blood; an active microbat can reach a heart rate of 1000 beats per minute.


title: Bat

text: With its extremely thin membranous tissue, a bat's wing can significantly contribute to the organism's total gas exchange efficiency. Because of the high energy demand of flight, the bat's body meets those demands by exchanging gas through the patagium of the wing. When the bat has its wings spread it allows for an increase in surface area to volume ratio. The surface area of the wings is about 85% of the total body surface area, suggesting the possibility of a useful degree of gas exchange. The subcutaneous vessels in the membrane lie very close to the surface and allow for the diffusion of oxygen and carbon dioxide.


title: Bat

text: The digestive system of bats has varying adaptations depending on the species of bat and its diet. As in other flying animals, food is processed quickly and effectively to keep up with the energy demand. Insectivorous bats may have certain digestive enzymes to better process insects, such as chitinase to break down chitin, which is a large component of insects. Vampire bats, probably due to their diet of blood, are the only vertebrates that do not have the enzyme maltase, which breaks down malt sugar, in their intestinal tract. Nectivorous and frugivorous bats have more maltase and sucrase enzymes than insectivorous, to cope with the higher sugar contents of their diet.


title: Bat

text: The adaptations of the kidneys of bats vary with their diets. Carnivorous and vampire bats consume large amounts of protein and can output concentrated urine; their kidneys have a thin cortex and long renal papillae. Frugivorous bats lack that ability and have kidneys adapted for electrolyte-retention due to their low-electrolyte diet; their kidneys accordingly have a thick cortex and very short conical papillae. Bats have higher metabolic rates associated with flying, which lead to an increased respiratory water loss. Their large wings are composed of the highly vascularized membranes, increasing the surface area, and leading to cutaneous evaporative water loss. Water helps maintain their ionic balance in their blood, thermoregulation system, and removal of wastes and toxins from the body via urine. They are also susceptible to blood urea poisoning if they do not receive enough fluid.


title: Bat

text: The structure of the uterine system in female bats can vary by species, with some having two uterine horns while others have a single mainline chamber.


title: Bat

text: Microbats and a few megabats emit ultrasonic sounds to produce echoes. Sound intensity of these echos are dependent on subglottic pressure. The bats' cricothyroid muscle controls the orientation pulse frequency, which is an important function. This muscle is located inside the larynx and it is the only tensor muscle capable of aiding phonation. By comparing the outgoing pulse with the returning echoes, bats can gather information on their surroundings. This allows them to detect prey in darkness. Some bat calls can reach 140 decibels. Microbats use their larynx to emit echolocation signals through the mouth or the nose. Microbat calls range in frequency from 14,000 to well over 100,000 Hz, extending well beyond the range of human hearing (between 20 and 20,000 Hz). Various groups of bats have evolved fleshy extensions around and above the nostrils, known as nose-leaves, which play a role in sound transmission.


title: Bat

text: In low-duty cycle echolocation, bats can separate their calls and returning echoes by time. They have to time their short calls to finish before echoes return. The delay of the returning echoes allows the bat to estimate the range to their prey. In high-duty cycle echolocation, bats emit a continuous call and separate pulse and echo in frequency using the Doppler effect of their motion in flight. The shift of the returning echoes yields information relating to the motion and location of the bat's prey. These bats must deal with changes in the Doppler shift due to changes in their flight speed. They have adapted to change their pulse emission frequency in relation to their flight speed so echoes still return in the optimal hearing range.


title: Bat

text: In addition to echolocating prey, bat ears are sensitive to sounds made by their prey, such as the fluttering of moth wings. The complex geometry of ridges on the inner surface of bat ears helps to sharply focus echolocation signals, and to passively listen for any other sound produced by the prey. These ridges can be regarded as the acoustic equivalent of a Fresnel lens, and exist in a large variety of unrelated animals, such as the aye-aye, lesser galago, bat-eared fox, mouse lemur, and others. Bats can estimate the elevation of their target using the interference patterns from the echoes reflecting from the tragus, a flap of skin in the external ear.


title: Bat

text: By repeated scanning, bats can mentally construct an accurate image of the environment in which they are moving and of their prey. Some species of moth have exploited this, such as the tiger moths, which produces aposematic ultrasound signals to warn bats that they are chemically protected and therefore distasteful. Moth species including the tiger moth can produce signals to jam bat echolocation. Many moth species have a hearing organ called a tympanum, which responds to an incoming bat signal by causing the moth's flight muscles to twitch erratically, sending the moth into random evasive manoeuvres.


title: Bat

text: The eyes of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity, but no species is blind. Most microbats have mesopic vision, meaning that they can detect light only in low levels, whereas other mammals have photopic vision, which allows colour vision. Microbats may use their vision for orientation and while travelling between their roosting grounds and feeding grounds, as echolocation is effective only over short distances. Some species can detect ultraviolet (UV). As the bodies of some microbats have distinct coloration, they may be able to discriminate colours.


title: Bat

text: Megabat species often have eyesight as good as, if not better than, human vision. Their eyesight is adapted to both night and daylight vision, including some colour vision.


title: Bat

text: Microbats make use of magnetoreception, in that they have a high sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic field, as birds do. Microbats use a polarity-based compass, meaning that they differentiate north from south, unlike birds, which use the strength of the magnetic field to differentiate latitudes, which may be used in long-distance travel. The mechanism is unknown but may involve magnetite particles.


title: Bat

text: Most bats are homeothermic (having a stable body temperature), the exception being the vesper bats (Vespertilionidae), the horseshoe bats (Rhinolophidae), the free-tailed bats (Molossidae), and the bent-winged bats (Miniopteridae), which extensively use heterothermy (where body temperature can vary). Compared to other mammals, bats have a high thermal conductivity. The wings are filled with blood vessels, and lose body heat when extended. At rest, they may wrap their wings around themselves to trap a layer of warm air. Smaller bats generally have a higher metabolic rate than larger bats, and so need to consume more food in order to maintain homeothermy.


title: Bat

text: Bats may avoid flying during the day to prevent overheating in the sun, since their dark wing-membranes absorb solar radiation. Bats may not be able to dissipate heat if the ambient temperature is too high; they use saliva to cool themselves in extreme conditions. Among megabats, the flying fox "Pteropus hypomelanus" uses saliva and wing-fanning to cool itself while roosting during the hottest part of the day. Among microbats, the Yuma myotis ("Myotis yumanensis"), the Mexican free-tailed bat, and the pallid bat ("Antrozous pallidus") cope with temperatures up to by panting, salivating, and licking their fur to promote evaporative cooling; this is sufficient to dissipate twice their metabolic heat production.


title: Bat

text: Bats also possess a system of sphincter valves on the arterial side of the vascular network that runs along the edge of their wings. When fully open, these allow oxygenated blood to flow through the capillary network across the wing membrane; when contracted, they shunt flow directly to the veins, bypassing the wing capillaries. This allows bats to control how much heat is exchanged through the flight membrane, allowing them to release heat during flight. Many other mammals use the capillary network in oversized ears for the same purpose.


title: Bat

text: Torpor, a state of decreased activity where the body temperature and metabolism decreases, is especially useful for bats, as they use a large amount of energy while active, depend upon an unreliable food source, and have a limited ability to store fat. They generally drop their body temperature in this state to , and may reduce their energy expenditure by 50 to 99%. Tropical bats may use it to avoid predation, by reducing the amount of time spent on foraging and thus reducing the chance of being caught by a predator. Megabats were generally believed to be homeothermic, but three species of small megabats, with a mass of about , have been known to use torpor: the common blossom bat ("Syconycteris australis"), the long-tongued nectar bat ("Macroglossus minimus"), and the eastern tube-nosed bat ("Nyctimene robinsoni"). Torpid states last longer in the summer for megabats than in the winter.


title: Bat

text: During hibernation, bats enter a torpid state and decrease their body temperature for 99.6% of their hibernation period; even during periods of arousal, when they return their body temperature to normal, they sometimes enter a shallow torpid state, known as "heterothermic arousal". Some bats become dormant during higher temperatures to keep cool in the summer months.


title: Bat

text: Heterothermic bats during long migrations may fly at night and go into a torpid state roosting in the daytime. Unlike migratory birds, which fly during the day and feed during the night, nocturnal bats have a conflict between travelling and eating. The energy saved reduces their need to feed, and also decreases the duration of migration, which may prevent them from spending too much time in unfamiliar places, and decrease predation. In some species, pregnant individuals may not use torpor.


title: Bat

text: The smallest bat is Kitti's hog-nosed bat ("Craseonycteris thonglongyai"), which is long with a wingspan and weighs . It is also arguably the smallest extant species of mammal, next to the Etruscan shrew. The largest bats are a few species of "Pteropus" megabats and the giant golden-crowned flying fox, ("Acerodon jubatus"), which can weigh with a wingspan of . Larger bats tend to use lower frequencies and smaller bats higher for echolocation; high-frequency echolocation is better at detecting smaller prey. Small prey may be absent in the diets of large bats as they are unable to detect them. The adaptations of a particular bat species can directly influence what kinds of prey are available to it.


title: Bat

text: Flight has enabled bats to become one of the most widely distributed groups of mammals. Apart from the Arctic, the Antarctic and a few isolated oceanic islands, bats exist in almost every habitat on Earth. Tropical areas tend to have more species than temperate ones. Different species select different habitats during different seasons, ranging from seasides to mountains and deserts, but they require suitable roosts. Bat roosts can be found in hollows, crevices, foliage, and even human-made structures, and include "tents" the bats construct with leaves. Megabats generally roost in trees. Most microbats are nocturnal and megabats are typically diurnal or crepuscular. Microbats are known to exhibit diurnal behaviour in temperate regions during summer when there is insufficient night time to forage, and in areas where there are few avian predators during the day.


title: Bat

text: In temperate areas, some microbats migrate hundreds of kilometres to winter hibernation dens; others pass into torpor in cold weather, rousing and feeding when warm weather allows insects to be active. Others retreat to caves for winter and hibernate for as much as six months. Microbats rarely fly in rain; it interferes with their echolocation, and they are unable to hunt.


title: Bat

text: Different bat species have different diets, including insects, nectar, pollen, fruit and even vertebrates. Megabats are mostly fruit, nectar and pollen eaters. Due to their small size, high-metabolism and rapid burning of energy through flight, bats must consume large amounts of food for their size. Insectivorous bats may eat over 120 percent of their body weight, while frugivorous bats may eat over twice their weight. They can travel significant distances each night, exceptionally as much as in the spotted bat ("Euderma maculatum"), in search of food. Bats use a variety of hunting strategies. Bats get most of their water from the food they eat; many species also drink from water sources like lakes and streams, flying over the surface and dipping their tongues into the water.


title: Bat

text: The Chiroptera as a whole are in the process of losing the ability to synthesise vitamin C. In a test of 34 bat species from six major families, including major insect- and fruit-eating bat families, all were found to have lost the ability to synthesise it, and this loss may derive from a common bat ancestor, as a single mutation. At least two species of bat, the frugivorous bat ("Rousettus leschenaultii") and the insectivorous bat ("Hipposideros armiger"), have retained their ability to produce vitamin C.


title: Bat

text: Most microbats, especially in temperate areas, prey on insects. The diet of an insectivorous bat may span many species, including flies, mosquitos, beetles, moths, grasshoppers, crickets, termites, bees, wasps, mayflies and caddisflies. Large numbers of Mexican free-tailed bats ("Tadarida brasiliensis") fly hundreds of metres above the ground in central Texas to feed on migrating moths. Species that hunt insects in flight, like the little brown bat ("Myotis lucifugus"), may catch an insect in mid-air with the mouth, and eat it in the air or use their tail membranes or wings to scoop up the insect and carry it to the mouth. The bat may also take the insect back to its roost and eat it there. Slower moving bat species, such as the brown long-eared bat ("Plecotus auritus") and many horseshoe bat species, may take or glean insects from vegetation or hunt them from perches. Insectivorous bats living at high latitudes have to consume prey with higher energetic value than tropical bats.


title: Bat

text: Fruit eating, or frugivory, is found in both major suborders. Bats prefer ripe fruit, pulling it off the trees with their teeth. They fly back to their roosts to eat the fruit, sucking out the juice and spitting the seeds and pulp out onto the ground. This helps disperse the seeds of these fruit trees, which may take root and grow where the bats have left them, and many species of plants depend on bats for seed dispersal. The Jamaican fruit bat ("Artibeus jamaicensis") has been recorded carrying fruits weighing or even as much as .


title: Bat

text: Nectar-eating bats have acquired specialised adaptations. These bats possess long muzzles and long, extensible tongues covered in fine bristles that aid them in feeding on particular flowers and plants. The tube-lipped nectar bat ("Anoura fistulata") has the longest tongue of any mammal relative to its body size. This is beneficial to them in terms of pollination and feeding. Their long, narrow tongues can reach deep into the long cup shape of some flowers. When the tongue retracts, it coils up inside the rib cage. Because of these features, nectar-feeding bats cannot easily turn to other food sources in times of scarcity, making them more prone to extinction than other types of bat. Nectar feeding also aids a variety of plants, since these bats serve as pollinators, as pollen gets attached to their fur while they are feeding. Around 500 species of flowering plant rely on bat pollination and thus tend to open their flowers at night. Many rainforest plants depend on bat pollination.


title: Bat

text: Some bats prey on other vertebrates, such as fish, frogs, lizards, birds and mammals. The fringe-lipped bat ("Trachops cirrhosus,") for example, is skilled at catching frogs. These bats locate large groups of frogs by tracking their mating calls, then plucking them from the surface of the water with their sharp canine teeth. The greater noctule bat can catch birds in flight. Some species, like the greater bulldog bat ("Noctilio leporinus") hunt fish. They use echolocation to detect small ripples on the water's surface, swoop down and use specially enlarged claws on their hind feet to grab the fish, then take their prey to a feeding roost and consume it. At least two species of bat are known to feed on other bats: the spectral bat ("Vampyrum spectrum"), and the ghost bat ("Macroderma gigas").


title: Bat

text: A few species, specifically the common, white-winged, and hairy-legged vampire bats, feed only on animal blood (hematophagy). The common vampire bat typically feeds on large mammals such as cattle; the hairy-legged and white-winged vampires feed on birds. Vampire bats target sleeping prey and can detect deep breathing. Heat sensors in the nose help them to detect blood vessels near the surface of the skin. They pierce the animal's skin with their teeth, biting away a small flap, and lap up the blood with their tongues, which have lateral grooves adapted to this purpose. The blood is kept from clotting by an anticoagulant in the saliva.


title: Bat

text: Bats are subject to predation from birds of prey, such as owls, hawks, and falcons, and at roosts from terrestrial predators able to climb, such as cats. Low-flying bats are vulnerable to crocodiles. Twenty species of tropical New World snakes are known to capture bats, often waiting at the entrances of refuges, such as caves, for bats to fly past. J. Rydell and J. R. Speakman argue that bats evolved nocturnality during the early and middle Eocene period to avoid predators. The evidence is thought by some zoologists to be equivocal so far.


title: Bat

text: As most mammals, bats are hosts to a number of internal and external parasites. Among ectoparasites, bats carry fleas and mites, as well as specific parasites such as bat bugs and bat flies (Nycteribiidae and Streblidae). Bats are among the few non-aquatic mammalian orders that do not host lice, possibly due to competition from more specialised parasites that occupy the same niche.


title: Bat

text: White nose syndrome is a condition associated with the deaths of millions of bats in the Eastern United States and Canada. The disease is named after a white fungus, "Pseudogymnoascus destructans", found growing on the muzzles, ears, and wings of affected bats. The fungus is mostly spread from bat to bat, and causes the disease. The fungus was first discovered in central New York State in 2006 and spread quickly to the entire Eastern US north of Florida; mortality rates of 90–100% have been observed in most affected caves. New England and the mid-Atlantic states have, since 2006, witnessed entire species completely extirpated and others with numbers that have gone from the hundreds of thousands, even millions, to a few hundred or less. Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick have witnessed identical die offs, with the Canadian government making preparations to protect all remaining bat populations in its territory. Scientific evidence suggests that longer winters where the fungus has a longer period to infect bats result in greater mortality. In 2014, the infection crossed the Mississippi River, and in 2017, it was found on bats in Texas.


title: Bat

text: Bats are natural reservoirs for a large number of zoonotic pathogens, including rabies, endemic in many bat populations, histoplasmosis both directly and in guano, Nipah and Hendra viruses, and possibly the ebola virus, whose natural reservoir is yet unknown. Their high mobility, broad distribution, long life spans, substantial sympatry (range overlap) of species, and social behaviour make bats favourable hosts and vectors of disease. Reviews have found different answers as to whether bats have more zoonotic viruses than other mammal groups. One 2015 review found that bats, rodents, and primates all harbored significantly more zoonotic viruses (which can be transmitted to humans) than other mammal groups, though the differences among the aforementioned three groups were not significant (bats have no more zoonotic viruses than rodents and primates). Another 2020 review of mammals and birds found that the identify of the taxonomic groups did not have any impact on the probability of harboring zoonotic viruses. Instead, more diverse groups had greater viral diversity.


title: Bat

text: They seem to be highly resistant to many of the pathogens they carry, suggesting a degree of adaptation to their immune systems. Their interactions with livestock and pets, including predation by vampire bats, accidental encounters, and the scavenging of bat carcasses, compound the risk of zoonotic transmission. Bats are implicated in the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in China, since they serve as natural hosts for coronaviruses, several from a single cave in Yunnan, one of which developed into the SARS virus. However, they neither cause nor spread COVID-19.


title: Bat

text: Some bats lead solitary lives, while others live in colonies of more than a million. For instance, the Mexican free-tailed bat fly for more than one thousand miles to the wide cave known as Bracken Cave every March to October which plays home to an astonishing twenty million of the species, whereas a mouse-eared bat lives an almost completely solitary life. Living in large colonies lessens the risk to an individual of predation. Temperate bat species may swarm at hibernation sites as autumn approaches. This may serve to introduce young to hibernation sites, signal reproduction in adults and allow adults to breed with those from other groups.


title: Bat

text: Several species have a fission-fusion social structure, where large numbers of bats congregate in one roosting area, along with breaking up and mixing of subgroups. Within these societies, bats are able to maintain long-term relationships. Some of these relationships consist of matrilineally related females and their dependent offspring. Food sharing and mutual grooming may occur in certain species, such as the common vampire bat ("Desmodus rotundus"), and these strengthen social bonds.


title: Bat

text: Bats are among the most vocal of mammals and produce calls to attract mates, find roost partners and defend resources. These calls are typically low-frequency and can travel long distances. Mexican free-tailed bats are one of the few species to "sing" like birds. Males sing to attract females. Songs have three phrases: chirps, trills and buzzes, the former having "A" and "B" syllables. Bat songs are highly stereotypical but with variation in syllable number, phrase order, and phrase repetitions between individuals. Among greater spear-nosed bats ("Phyllostomus hastatus"), females produce loud, broadband calls among their roost mates to form group cohesion. Calls differ between roosting groups and may arise from vocal learning.


title: Bat

text: In a study on captive Egyptian fruit bats, 70% of the directed calls could be identified by the researchers as to which individual bat made it, and 60% could be categorised into four contexts: squabbling over food, jostling over position in their sleeping cluster, protesting over mating attempts and arguing when perched in close proximity to each other. The animals made slightly different sounds when communicating with different individual bats, especially those of the opposite sex. In the highly sexually dimorphic hammer-headed bat ("Hypsignathus monstrosus"), males produce deep, resonating, monotonous calls to attract females. Bats in flight make vocal signals for traffic control. Greater bulldog bats honk when on a collision course with each other.


title: Bat

text: Bats also communicate by other means. Male little yellow-shouldered bats ("Sturnira lilium") have shoulder glands that produce a spicy odour during the breeding season. Like many other species, they have hair specialised for retaining and dispersing secretions. Such hair forms a conspicuous collar around the necks of the some Old World megabat males. Male greater sac-winged bats ("Saccopteryx bilineata") have sacs in their wings in which they mix body secretions like saliva and urine to create a perfume that they sprinkle on roost sites, a behaviour known as "salting". Salting may be accompanied by singing.


title: Bat

text: Most bat species are polygynous, where males mate with multiple females. Male pipistrelle, noctule and vampire bats may claim and defend resources that attract females, such as roost sites, and mate with those females. Males unable to claim a site are forced to live on the periphery where they have less reproductive success. Promiscuity, where both sexes mate with multiple partners, exists in species like the Mexican free-tailed bat and the little brown bat. There appears to be bias towards certain males among females in these bats. In a few species, such as the yellow-winged bat and spectral bat, adult males and females form monogamous pairs. Lek mating, where males aggregate and compete for female choice through display, is rare in bats but occurs in the hammerheaded bat.


title: Bat

text: For temperate living bats, mating takes place in late summer and early autumn. Tropical bats may mate during the dry season. After copulation, the male may leave behind a mating plug to block the sperm of other males and thus ensure his paternity. In hibernating species, males are known to mate with females in torpor. Female bats use a variety of strategies to control the timing of pregnancy and the birth of young, to make delivery coincide with maximum food ability and other ecological factors. Females of some species have delayed fertilisation, in which sperm is stored in the reproductive tract for several months after mating. Mating occurs in late summer to early autumn but fertilisation does not occur until the following late winter to early spring. Other species exhibit delayed implantation, in which the egg is fertilised after mating, but remains free in the reproductive tract until external conditions become favourable for giving birth and caring for the offspring. In another strategy, fertilisation and implantation both occur, but development of the foetus is delayed until good conditions prevail. During the delayed development the mother keeps the fertilised egg alive with nutrients. This process can go on for a long period, because of the advanced gas exchange system.


title: Bat

text: For temperate living bats, births typically take place in May or June in the northern hemisphere; births in the southern hemisphere occur in November and December. Tropical species give birth at the beginning of the rainy season. In most bat species, females carry and give birth to a single pup per litter. At birth, a bat pup can be up to 40 percent of the mother's weight, and the pelvic girdle of the female can expand during birth as the two-halves are connected by a flexible ligament. Females typically give birth in a head-up or horizontal position, using gravity to make birthing easier. The young emerges rear-first, possibly to prevent the wings from getting tangled, and the female cradles it in her wing and tail membranes. In many species, females give birth and raise their young in maternity colonies and may assist each other in birthing.


title: Bat

text: Most of the care for a young bat comes from the mother. In monogamous species, the father plays a role. Allo-suckling, where a female suckles another mother's young, occurs in several species. This may serve to increase colony size in species where females return to their natal colony to breed. A young bat's ability to fly coincides with the development of an adult body and forelimb length. For the little brown bat, this occurs about eighteen days after birth. Weaning of young for most species takes place in under eighty days. The common vampire bat nurses its offspring beyond that and young vampire bats achieve independence later in life than other species. This is probably due to the species' blood-based diet, which is difficult to obtain on a nightly basis.


title: Bat

text: The maximum lifespan of bats is three-and-a-half times longer than other mammals of similar size. Six species have been recorded to live over thirty years in the wild: the brown long-eared bat ("Plecotus auritus"), the little brown bat ("Myotis lucifugus"), the Siberian bat ("Myotis sibiricus"), the lesser mouse-eared bat ("Myotis blythii") the greater horseshoe bat ("Rhinolophus ferrumequinum"), and the Indian flying fox ("Pteropus giganteus"). One hypothesis consistent with the rate-of-living theory links this to the fact that they slow down their metabolic rate while hibernating; bats that hibernate, on average, have a longer lifespan than bats that do not.


title: Bat

text: Another hypothesis is that flying has reduced their mortality rate, which would also be true for birds and gliding mammals. Bat species that give birth to multiple pups generally have a shorter lifespan than species that give birth to only a single pup. Cave-roosting species may have a longer lifespan than non-roosting species because of the decreased predation in caves. A male Siberian bat was recaptured in the wild after 41 years, making it the oldest known bat.


title: Bat

text: Groups such as the Bat Conservation International aim to increase awareness of bats' ecological roles and the environmental threats they face. In the United Kingdom, all bats are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Acts, and disturbing a bat or its roost can be punished with a heavy fine.


title: Bat

text: In Sarawak, Malaysia, "all bats" are protected under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998, but species such as the hairless bat ("Cheiromeles torquatus") are still eaten by the local communities. Humans have caused the extinction of several species of bat in modern history, the most recent being the Christmas Island pipistrelle ("Pipistrellus murrayi"), which was declared extinct in 2009.


title: Bat

text: Many people put up bat houses to attract bats. The 1991 University of Florida bat house is the largest occupied artificial roost in the world, with around 400,000 residents. In Britain, thickwalled and partly underground World War II pillboxes have been converted to make roosts for bats, and purpose-built bat houses are occasionally built to mitigate damage to habitat from road or other developments. Cave gates are sometimes installed to limit human entry into caves with sensitive or endangered bat species. The gates are designed not to limit the airflow, and thus to maintain the cave's micro-ecosystem. Of the 47 species of bats found in the United States, 35 are known to use human structures, including buildings and bridges. Fourteen species use bat houses.


title: Bat

text: Bats are eaten in countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific Rim. In some cases, such as in Guam, flying foxes have become endangered through being hunted for food. There is evidence that wind turbines create sufficient barotrauma (pressure damage) to kill bats. Bats have typical mammalian lungs, which are thought to be more sensitive to sudden air pressure changes than the lungs of birds, making them more liable to fatal rupture. Bats may be attracted to turbines, perhaps seeking roosts, increasing the death rate. Acoustic deterrents may help to reduce bat mortality at wind farms.


title: Bat

text: Since bats are mammals, yet can fly, they are considered to be liminal beings in various traditions. In many cultures, including in Europe, bats are associated with darkness, death, witchcraft, and malevolence. Among Native Americans such as the Creek, Cherokee and Apache, the bat is identified as a trickster. In Tanzania, a winged batlike creature known as Popobawa is believed to be a shapeshifting evil spirit that assaults and sodomises its victims. In Aztec mythology, bats symbolised the land of the dead, destruction, and decay. An East Nigerian tale tells that the bat developed its nocturnal habits after causing the death of his partner, the bush-rat, and now hides by day to avoid arrest.


title: Bat

text: More positive depictions of bats exist in some cultures. In China, bats have been associated with happiness, joy and good fortune. Five bats are used to symbolise the "Five Blessings": longevity, wealth, health, love of virtue and peaceful death. The bat is sacred in Tonga and is often considered the physical manifestation of a separable soul. In the Zapotec civilisation of Mesoamerica, the bat god presided over corn and fertility.


title: Bat

text: The Weird Sisters in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" used the fur of a bat in their brew. In Western culture, the bat is often a symbol of the night and its foreboding nature. The bat is a primary animal associated with fictional characters of the night, both villainous vampires, such as Count Dracula and before him "Varney the Vampire", and heroes, such as the DC Comics character Batman. Kenneth Oppel's Silverwing novels narrate the adventures of a young bat, based on the silver-haired bat of North America.


title: Bat

text: The bat is sometimes used as a heraldic symbol in Spain and France, appearing in the coats of arms of the towns of Valencia, Palma de Mallorca, Fraga, Albacete, and Montchauvet. Three US states have an official state bat. Texas and Oklahoma are represented by the Mexican free-tailed bat, while Virginia is represented by the Virginia big-eared bat ("Corynorhinus townsendii virginianus").


title: Bat

text: Insectivorous bats in particular are especially helpful to farmers, as they control populations of agricultural pests and reduce the need to use pesticides. It has been estimated that bats save the agricultural industry of the United States anywhere from $3.7billion to $53billion per year in pesticides and damage to crops. This also prevents the overuse of pesticides, which can pollute the surrounding environment, and may lead to resistance in future generations of insects.


title: Bat

text: Bat dung, a type of guano, is rich in nitrates and is mined from caves for use as fertiliser. During the US Civil War, saltpetre was collected from caves to make gunpowder. At the time, it was believed that the nitrate all came from the bat guano, but it is now known that most of it is produced by nitrifying bacteria.


title: Bat

text: The Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas, is the summer home to North America's largest urban bat colony, an estimated 1,500,000 Mexican free-tailed bats. About 100,000 tourists a year visit the bridge at twilight to watch the bats leave the roost.


title: Michael Franzese

text: Michael Franzese () ("né" Grillo; born May 27, 1951) is an American former mobster who was a caporegime in the Colombo crime family, and son of former underboss Sonny Franzese. Franzese was enrolled in a pre-med program at Hofstra University, but dropped out to make money for his family after his father was sentenced to 50 years in prison for bank robbery in 1967. He eventually helped defraud the federal government of gasoline taxes in the early 1980s.


title: Michael Franzese

text: By the age of 35, in 1986, "Fortune Magazine" listed Franzese as number 18 on its list of the "Fifty Most Wealthy and Powerful Mafia Bosses". Franzese had claimed that at the height of his career, he generated up to $8 million per week. In 1986, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on conspiracy charges, released in 1989, rearrested in 1991 for a parole violation, and ultimately released in 1994. Soon after, he retired to California and is now a motivational speaker and writer.


title: Michael Franzese

text: Franzese was born on May 27, 1951, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, to John "Sonny" Franzese, a Colombo crime family underboss, and Cristina Capobianco-Franzese, although Michael had initially questioned his actual biological father. Franzese had initially believed that he had been adopted by John after his mother divorced Frank Grillo, whom Franzese thought to be his biological father. Michael says he had gone by the name "Michael Grillo" until he was 18 years old. However, it was later discovered that John, already married with three children, had gotten the 16-year-old Capobianco, a cigarette girl at the Stork Club in Manhattan, pregnant with Michael, so Capobianco married Grillo to avoid having a scandal surrounding having a child out of wedlock. After the mob allowed John to divorce his first wife, Grillo disappeared, and he married Capobianco.


title: Michael Franzese

text: in 1969; his father originally did not want him to be involved in organized crime. However, in 1971, Franzese decided to drop out of college to help his family earn money when his father was sentenced to 50 years in prison for bank robbery in 1967.


title: Michael Franzese

text: Franzese became acquainted with his father's friends such as Joseph Colombo, and according to Franzese, later became inducted as a made man on Halloween night 1975 under acting boss Tommy DiBella. As part of the ceremony Franzese took the blood oath and swore omerta. He took the oath alongside friend Jimmy Angelino, Joseph Peraino Jr., Salvatore Miciotta, Vito Guzzo Sr., and John Minerva — all of whom except Miciotta died violently over the next 20 years. Although Franzese recounts this ceremony had taken place in 1975, the membership books reportedly were not reopened until 1976 (they had been closed since 1957).


title: Michael Franzese

text: Franzese was briefly mentored by Colombo soldier Joseph "Joe-Joe" Vitacco (1927–1980). During the late 1970s, Franzese met with Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, who was then a soldier. Angelo Ruggiero was also present. Franzese was contacted by a flea market owner who complained that his partner was using and selling drugs at the market in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Franzese agreed to frighten him and become the new partner. Franzese sent Colombo soldier-turned informant Anthony Sarivola and another member who remains unidentified. Gotti however claimed that the scared-off partner was an associate of his. Franzese later expressed admiration for Gotti, citing his strict mobster lifestyle and his overwhelming ego.


title: Michael Franzese

text: In 1981, Franzese was contacted by Lawrence Salvatore Iorizzo who had developed a scheme to defraud the federal government out of gasoline taxes in 1985. Iorizzo was being hassled by criminals in California and offered Franzese a percentage if he would defend and solve the issue. The pair set up 18 stock-bearer companies based in Panama. Under law at the time in Panama, gasoline could be sold tax-free from one wholesale company to the next. Franzese partnered with the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn in the gas scheme. The wholesale gas was sold to one company, but shipped to another company while a third company, a dummy company, was sold the gasoline on paper and would forge tax documents for the company that received the gasoline. Franzese's crew was then able to collect and pocket the nine cents per gallon of gasoline in federal tax. Once enforcement agents attempt to collect the tax from the dummy company, it declares bankruptcy and the daisy chain would continue. This gasoline supplied between one third and one half of all gasoline sold in the New York metropolitan area. According to officials, Franzese kept 75 percent of the profits, making $1.26 million per month, while Iorizzo made $45,000 per month. An associate later testified that Franzese personally made $1 million per week from the gas scheme.


title: Michael Franzese

text: Franzese had claimed that at the height of his career, he generated up to $8 million per week. Revenue officials estimated $250 million in gasoline tax was stolen in New York state per year, before moving on to Florida which was estimated to have lost $40 million to $250 million in stolen gasoline tax. Authorities believe the money was laundered through Franzese's film production company, Miami Gold, to offshore bank accounts in Austria and Panama. Franzese bought a home in Delray Beach, Florida.


title: Michael Franzese

text: In 1986, "Fortune Magazine" listed Franzese as number 18 on its list of the "Fifty Most Wealthy and Powerful Mafia Bosses". "Vanity Fair" cited him as one of the biggest money earners for the mafia since Al Capone. He was referred to as the "Yuppie Don" in the 1980s, and as "Prince of the Mafia".


title: Michael Franzese

text: During the 1970s, he began to enter the world of legitimate business and by the mid 1980s Franzese had a stronghold on various businesses such as car dealerships, leasing companies, auto repair shops, restaurants, nightclubs, a contractor company, movie production and distribution companies, travel agencies and video stores.


title: Michael Franzese

text: By 1980, Franzese was a partner with booking agent Norby Walters in his firm. Franzese's role was to intimidate existing and prospective clients. Franzese would later testify he provided the initial $50,000 to Walters to start his agency booking company with a 25% share of any profits. Additionally, Franzese would assist with any entertainers Walters had problems with by meeting their agents. In 1981, Franzese successfully extorted a role for Walters in the US tour by singer Michael Jackson and his brothers. In 1982, the manager for singer Dionne Warwick wanted to drop Walters as an agent; Franzese met with the manager and persuaded him to keep Walters.


title: Michael Franzese

text: In 1983, the FBI launched an investigation into boxing promoter Don King's organized crime connections and targeted Franzese to introduce an FBI undercover agent, using the alias Victor Quintana, to King. Franzese, who had never met King, says he was introduced to him by civil rights leader Al Sharpton. Franzese claimed he first met Sharpton through the Genovese crime family mobster Daniel Pagano. Quintana was to give the impression that he was buying his way into the boxing world in order for King to reveal his criminal associations, however the investigation subsequently collapsed after Quintana failed to follow through with several hundred thousand dollars.


title: Michael Franzese

text: In 1985, Walters set up a sports management agency with Franzese as a silent partner. At a meeting he agreed to hand over $50,000 in return for a 25 percent interest from the sports agency.


title: Michael Franzese

text: Franzese was the president of Miami Gold, a film production company that produced the 1986 film "Knights of the City".


title: Michael Franzese

text: In April 1985, Franzese was acquitted of racketeering charges. In another case in December 1985, Franzese was charged in both Florida and New York in regards to counterfeiting and extortion from the gasoline bootlegging racket. In New York, Franzese was one of nine people indicted on 14 counts. In Florida, Franzese was one of 26 people indicted on 177 counts after a 16 month investigation in Florida called "Operation Tiger Tail".


title: Michael Franzese

text: Iorizzo, who was already sentenced to five years and ordered to pay $1.7 million for his role in the theft of $1.1 million in gas taxes and placed in the witness protection program, began testifying against Franzese and others in their operation in March 1985. On March 21, 1986, Franzese pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of tax conspiracy. Franzese was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $14.7 million in restitution on the federal charges, agreeing to sell his assets including a mansion in Old Brookville, New York, the Miami Gold production company, and use proceeds from the "Knights of the City" film. He then reached a plea agreement and was sentenced to nine years in prison for state racketeering charges in Florida which would run concurrently with his previous conviction. He also was ordered to pay an additional $3 million in restitution to the state of Florida.