75 Interesting Facts About Bats

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The Bracken Bat Cave in Texas is the largest known bat colony in the world. Over 20 million bats live in the cave, which is more bats than there are people living in Mumbai, India—one of the world’s largest human cities. When the bats leave the cave, the group is so large that it looks like a huge storm on radar. The bats will eat over 200 tons of bugs in one night.f Researchers were surprised to find that the female short-nosed fruit bat (Cynopterus sphinx) performs oral sex, or fellatio, on males to prolong copulation. Although fellatio has been observed in juvenile members of the chimpanzee-like bonobo, this is the first time fellatio has been seen in adult animals other than humans. Researchers argue that for bats, fellatio likely has evolutionary benefits.d Some Mexican free-tailed bats can fly up to 250 miles (402 km) in a single night. They can fly up to 10,000 feet (3,048 m) high and reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour (97kph).g A small colony of bats can eat over one ton of insects in one year, or more than 600 million bugs.c A single bat can eat more than 600 bugs in one hour, which is like a person eating 20 pizzas a night.b According to Bat Conservation International, 150 big brown bats can eat enough cucumber beetles in one summer to save farmers a billion dollars a year. Those beetles would have had 33 million larvae, which are what attack the crops.c The world’s largest bat is the giant golden-crowned flying fox, a rare fruit bat. It has a wingspan of 5 to 6 feet (1.5 to 1.8 m).e There are over 1,100 bat species in the world—only rodents have a greater number of species. In the United States, there are about 45 kinds of bats; the three most common are the Eptiesicus fuscus (big brown bat), Myotis lucifugus (little brown bat), and Tadarida brasilienis (Mexican free-tailed bat). Only three species of bats are vampire bats.g In Southeast Asia, small club-footed bats roost inside bamboo stalks. To reach their home, the bats squeeze into an opening as small as 0.4 inches—about the width of a fingernail.g In West Africa, small woolly bats live in large spider webs.h Some seeds will not sprout unless they have passed through the digestive tracts of a bat. Additionally, bats spread millions of seeds every year from the ripe fruit they eat. Approximately 95% of the reforestation of the tropical rainforest is a result of seed dispersal from bats.c Vampire bats do not actually “suck” blood. Instead, they typically “lap” up two teaspoons of blood a night with their tongues. The blood moves through the bat’s mouth in two channels under its tongue. Its body uses only red blood cells, and within two minutes of starting to eat, the bat’s body rids itself of blood plasma in the form of urine.h Some white-winged vampire bats snuggle up to hens and pretend to be chicks. Once in position under the hens, the bats feed on their blood.e Rarely will a vampire bat bite a person—but if it does, it will then probably come back the next night to feed again from that same person. Amazingly, vampire bats can tell people apart by the way they breathe.b A vampire bat that has found a meal may sometimes share the blood with other hungry vampires at the vampire roost. The vampire that found the blood vomits it to feed its friends.b Vlad the Impaler (1431-1476) was the original “human vampire” and was the first to be called Count Dracula (“son of the dragon”).h More than half of all bats in the U.S. are endangered or in decline. Both loss of habitat and a mysterious illness called “White-Nose Syndrome” (which has affected over a million bats) are major reasons for the decline.b The scientific name for bats, Chiroptera, is from the Greek cheir = hand + pteron = wing, or “hand wing.”c Bats have variously been called “flutterers,” “bald mice,” “old batters,” “fleder mauser,” “slang bats,” and “vagabonds.” They have also been called “flitter mice” because people thought of them as flying mice.f There are two main groups of bats: larger, Old World, fruit-eating mega bats (Megachiroptera) and microbats (Microchiroptera). Megabats are also known as fruit bats or flying foxes and typically live in warm climates. They use their large eyes to find food in the dark and they tend to roost in trees rather than in caves, crevices, or old buildings. Microbats are generally much smaller and use echolocation to find insects. Microbats are typically found all over the world, including the U.S. Not all megabats are larger than microbats.g There are several differences between megabats and microbats. The megabat has two claws, one on its thumb and one on its next finger. Microbats only have one claw, on the thumb. Megabats have better developed brains than microbats and they also rely more on their senses (sight and smell) and less on echolocation. A roosting megabat will bend its neck toward its chest and look at the world upside down. A roosting microbat will bend its neck toward its back and look at the world right-side up.g Scientists believe that flight in bats developed before echolocation.c Bats are the only mammals capable of powered flights.e Bats live on every continent except Antarctica. They are found almost as far north as the Arctic Circle and as far south as Argentina and the southern-most tip of South Africa.g A single brown bat (myotis) lives longer than most equally sized mammals, with a life span of nearly 40 years. Mice and shrews often live less than two years.g Unlike birds, which flap their entire forelimbs, bats flap their spread-out digits.c Bats make up about 20% of all classified mammal species globally.c Approximately 70% of bats eat insects. The rest arefrugivores, or fruit eaters.b Bats are the slowest reproducing mammals in the world for their size, and pregnancy is longer in bats than in other animals of their size.c Vampire bats are the only bats that move well on the ground.g Many bats open their mouth to call out their ultrasound echolocation signals, but others can shout through their nostrils. A few other animals use echolocation, including dolphins and some cave-dwelling birds.b The mouse-eared bat has a heartbeat as low as 18 beats a minute during hibernation, compared to 880 when it is active.b Scientists believe that bats first appeared 65-100 million years ago, the same time as the dinosaurs. The earliest known megabats lived 35 million years ago. Many scientists believe that megabats may be more closely related to primates (monkeys, apes, and humans) than they are to other microbats.c In China and Japan, bats are symbols of happiness. In Chinese, the words for “bat” and “good fortune” are both pronounced “fu.”g In North America and Europe, bats have long been associated with witchcraft and were often ingredients in folk medicines and potions.h The story of Dracula originated in Eastern Europe; however, real vampire bats are found only in Central and South America.h Fruit bats are a traditional food source for the people of Guam and have been hunted to the point where bats are currently listed as endangered. Guam now imports bat meat from other islands and serves as a major trade center for bat meat.c Bat dropping is called guano and is an important fertilizer in many tropical regions because of its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen.e Bats are not blind and, in fact, many bats can see quite well; some species can even detect ultraviolet light. They also have excellent echolocation, which means, contrary to urban legend, they would not get tangled in people’s hair.f The pipistrelle bat weighs less than two pennies and is only as long as a person’s little finger. Yet it can eat 3,000 insects in one night.f The tube-lipped nectar bat (Anoura fistulata) has the longest tongue, relative to body length, of any mammal. The bat retracts its tongue into its rib cage when it’s not being used.f Some female bats, especially those that hibernate, can control when they give birth by storing the male’s sperm inside their body, which delays fertilization, or by slowing the development of the embryo inside them.d The oldest known fossil microbat, called Icaronycteris index, was found near Yellowstone in Wyoming. It lived approximately 50 million years ago.b The bumblebee bat (Kitti’s Hog-nosed Bat) is the smallest bat in the world and lives in Thailand. Approximately the size of a bumblebee, the bat weighs less than a penny. It may be the smallest existing mammal. Due to habitant loss, it is listed as critically endangered.b Scientist have been able to use the anticoagulation agent in vampire bat spit to treat human stroke victims and human heart patient victims.c Most bats are brown and black, but a few are colorful shades of orange or red.c A bat’s echolocation is so tuned that it can detect objects as thin as a human hair.c A bat can detect the warmth of an animal 16 cm away using its “nose leaf.”g Bats can hear frequencies between 20 Hz and 120,000 Hz. Humans can hear between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz. Dogs can hears between 40 Hz and 60,000 Hz.c The bats that feed on frogs can tell the difference between safe and poisonous frogs by listening to the male frog’s call.f In most bat colonies, all the females birth their babies at the same time.b Vampire bats are the only mammals in the world that live entirely on blood.e During the U.S. civil war, bat droppings were used to make gunpowder.h Wind turbines kill tens of thousands of North American bats every year. Rather than being struck by turbines, many bats appear to be killed by a sudden drop in air pressure near the spinning blades. The tiny blood vessels in their delicate lungs explode.f In 600 B.C., the Greek Aesop told a fable about a bat that borrowed money to start a business. The business failed and the bat had to hide during the day to avoid the people it owed money to. According to Aesop, that is why bats come out just at night.h Bats can spread histoplasmosis (“Cave disease” or “Darling’s disease”), which is a very rare fungus, and rabies. However, the chance of a person dying from a bat is less than one in a million. A person has a better chance of falling in a bathtub and dying.h The phrase “bats in your belfry” was coined by American author George W. Peck in his 1901 book, Peck’s Uncle Ike and the Red-Headed Boy. The term “batty” was coined by another American, Al Kleberg, in his 1903 book, Slang Fables from Afar, in which he writes, “She . . . acted so queer . . . that he decided she was Batty.”h Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula combined the discovery of vampire (“blood drunkenness”) bats in the New World with Vlad the Impaler stories, to create Count Dracula. Dracula has never been out of print.h In the 1941 movie The Devil Bat, actor Bela Lugosi plays a mad scientist with an even madder killer bat. The bat goes out and slits the throats of a bunch of people wearing a certain kind of aftershave.h In the film Batman Begins, viewers learn that Bruce Wayne was attacked by bats when he fell into a deep hole. When Alfred asks Bruce, “Why bats?” Bruce replies “Bats frighten me. It’s time my enemies share my dread.”h A poll by the television show Animal Planet listed vampire bats as the third-most feared animal on the planet, right after wolves and gorillas and just ahead of piranhas.h Since vampire bats have to drink as much as their own weight in blood every day, a human vampire like Dracula would have to drink the blood of a whole table full of guests every night just to keep going.h The Organization for Bat Conservation (OBC) and Bat Conservation International (BCI) offer bat house kits that can be ordered online. A bat house at the University of Florida has a population of over 100,000 free-tailed bats.g To sleep, bats hang upside down so they can fly away quickly if needed.e For their body size, bats have larger brains than birds.b Bat wings are made from finger bones covered by thin layers of skin. The wing membranes of a bat make up about 95% of its body surface area. A bat’s wing membrane helps the bat regulate body temperature, blood pressure, water balance, and gas exchange.b No vampire bats live in the U.S. except in zoos.h Only about 5% of all U.S. caves have the right temperature and water conditions suitable for bats.c Most bats rest, sleep, mate, and give birth upside down.b The term “bat” appeared in 1570 from the Middle English bakke, which is related to the Old Swedishnatbakka and Old Danish nathbakkae or “night bat” and Old Norse leđrblaka or “leather flapper.”a A bat uses 30-60 days of stored energy to wake up out of hibernation. That is why it is so important to not disturb hibernating bats.h Three states in the U.S. have an official state bat. Virginia has the Virginia big-eared bat and Texas and Oklahoma have the Mexican free-tailed bat.h While some bats roost in groups with thousands or even millions of other bats, hoary bats and red bats are unusual in that they roost alone.e Most female bats fly with their young clinging to them, and some species have false nipples that their pups grasp during flight.f A group of bats is called a “colony.” A group of crows is called a “murder.” A group of ferrets is called a “business.” A group of giraffes is called a “tower.”g  Differences between Bats and Birds c Bats Birds All can fly Not all birds can fly (emus, ostriches, penguins) Give birth to live young Lay eggs Nurse their young with milk Bring food to their young Do not build nests Many build nests Have fur Have feathers Have teeth Have beaks, no teeth Have marrow-filled bones Have hollow bones Hand and finger bones support the wings Arm bones support the wings Leg bones help support the wing Leg bones do not support the wings None live in or on water Some live in or on water Some hibernate None hibernate Most are nocturnal Most are diurnal Most are quiet Many are noisy Most are not brightly colored Many are brightly colored -- Posted November 28, 2011 References a “Bat.” Online Etymology Dictionary. 2011. Accessed: November 2, 2011. b Bekkering, Annalise. 2010. Bats. New York, NY: Weigl Publishers Inc. c Carson, Mary Kay. 2010. The Bat Scientists. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. d Choi, Charles Q. “Surprising Sex Behavior Found in Bats.” Live Science. October 30, 2009. Accessed: November 2, 2011. e Jackson, John. 2001. Bats. Danbury, CT: Grolier Educational. f Markovics, Joyce. 2009. The Bat’s Cave: A Dark City. New York, NY: Bearport Publishing g Ruff, Sue and Don E. Wilson. 2001. Bats. New York, NY: Benchmark Books. h Taschek, Karen. 2008. Hanging with Bats: Ecobats, Vampires, and Movie Stars.Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. http://facts.randomhistory.com/archives.html