There are many types of mammals in our world, but did you know that that of all types and species of animals one out of every four is some sort of bat? There are over 1,000 kinds of bats, and each one is different.
Bats are unique because they are the only animal with fur that flies. Flying squirrels don't really fly they just glide. Most bats are have brown or gray fur but others have orange, black, tan or even white fur. Bats mostly have long pointed ears and wrinkled or odd shaped noses. A few have cute faces and some have alien like faces that look strange.
Bats are often named for how they look. There is the dog-faced bat, spear-faced bat, hammer-head bat, bull dog bat, and little brown bat.
The biggest bat in the world is the Giant Fox Bat. It weighs over 3 pounds, has reddish fur and a fox like face. It's wings are nearly six feet wide from tip to tip! The giant fox bat eats fruit so it is harmless. The smallest bat lives in Thailand and is called a Kitti's hog-nosed bat. It's wings measure only 6 inches from tip to tip and its body is the size of a jelly bean.
Fox Bat
Bats are shy animals and most kinds only come out at night. When the bats sleep, they hang upside down with their wings wrapped around their bodies. Bats live almost everywhere in the world. In Friendsville where I live there is a 'bat house'. Every night just as it is getting dark, thousands of bats exit a hole in roof and head for the river to feed on insects all night. You can stand near the old house and the bats will come flying right at you on their way to the river. They never hit you because of the well developed sonar and they can sense you and zoom out of your way, although they do sometimes come really close.
Most bats are quite harmless even thought they have sometimes look scary. There are a few kinds of bats called vampire bats that bite animals and then suck up small amounts of blood like oversized mosquitoes. But, they live in very remote parts of the world, and they almost never bite people.
Vampire bat.
Some bats are like butterflies and only drink nectar from flowers. In Mexico there are some bat species that fly over water and swoop down to catch fish. But most bats eat insects, lots and lots of insects. Scientists say that a bug eating bat eats up to half its body weight in insects every night. If you ate as much as a bat and you weighed 80 pounds you would have to eat 40lbs of food a night. That's a lot of pizza, and hot dogs! Obviously bats help keep the insect population under control and are therefore very beneficial. In our town of Friendsville, there are very few mosquitoes and we think this is because of all the bats. A single brown bat can eat 600-1,000 mosquitoes a night.
Brown Bat
Bats live in colonies. Every night they return to their home. Many bats migrate and return to the same old house or home every year. In Bracken cave Texas, there is a bat colony of over 20 million bats! Every night this colony is estimated to 200 tons of insects! It's a good thing their are billions of bats in the world or we would be up top our necks in bugs!
Colony of Indiana Bats
Many bats live in caves and hibernate there all winter in giant clusters to keep warm. Bats need our protection so they can do there work of keeping the bugs under control. If you want to provide a home for them you can build a bat box. There are laws that protect bats and it is usually against the law in most states to harm or kill a bat.
Bats use sonar to find their food. The term sonar is an acronym for sound navigation ranging. Bats emit ultra frequency sound waves that bounce off of objects. The sound wave that returns is understood by the bat as either an object or an insect. The vibrating wings of an insect send a distinct frequency back to the bat and the bat zooms in on its target.
Here are Some Bat Links to learn more about these mysterious and wonderful creatures of the night.
West Virginia DNR Indiana Bat Page
An article by Maryland student Aaron Wallace on how we can help to protect bats.