It Is Never Too Late To Learn More About Bats

With the exception of maybe Batman, bats in general are not well known to the American public, and they should be. Bats can spread disease, and there are over bat species living in America alone. However, bats are not all scary blood-suckers. In fact bats bring a lot of benefits to humanity.

For example, nearly all bats feed on insects and spiders, even the ones that harmful to crops. Bats can also help pollinate plants. Studying bats has also allowed scientists to develop more sophisticated sonar devices, flying vehicles and bats have contributed to a better understanding of evolutionary biology.

What many people don’t realize is that bats are the only mammals that can fly, which is a nice way of saying that they look like flying rats. Of course bats do not have hands like we do, rather bats have wings, which you certainly know. But you may not have known that bats do possess a hand-like limb that protrudes from each side of their body, and this limb helps them flap their wings. A bat’s wings do not have fur. Only a bats head and body possess fur.

There is likely no other body part that a bat values more than their ears. Bats use their ears in order to hunt for food. A bat’s ears are long, and cannot be missed as they can grow to be as long as two thirds of the bat’s total body length. A bats nose is often quite telling about which species the bat belongs to. Some bats have narrow noses, while other bats have larger noses that resemble the noses of pigs.

If you have never spotted a bat before, and would like to, then you best chances of spotting one in flight is around dusk. And don’t worry, they will not nosedive into you, or suck your blood.

What kind of behavior have you ever witnessed in bats? Do you know any other interesting facts about bats?