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Many people have misconceptions about bats.
In this article we will explore some of those and find out how amazing
facts on bats really are.
The first misconception is that bats are
related to the rodent family and that they are basically “flying
mice”. This is simply not true; in fact, bats are a group all
their own named ‘Chiroptera’, which means hand-wing. Bats are
closer to groups like primates and lemurs versus the rodents.
The next fact about bats that people are
often wrong about is they think bats are blind. The old saying goes ‘as
blind as a bat’ but in fact, many bats actually have very good vision.
They can see almost as well as us and while their sight is definitely
better in the darkness, they can still see pretty well. Some bats even see
in color! But to see in the dark, like inside a cave, bats use
“Echolocation”. These are very high frequency vocalizations similar to
radar that the bat emits as it flies.
Not all bats are vampire bats, though we
hear about those most. While many people believe that bats are vampires by
nature, out of the 900 species of bats, there are only three vampire bats
in the entire world. These three bat species generally stick to
Latin America and they do not usually get their blood meal from humans.
The remaining species of bats that are all over the world feed off of
fruit, nectar, pollen and insects. There are so many types of bats that
they make up 1/5 of the world’s mammals!
Bats usually only have one live young per
year? Their slow reproduction makes them vulnerable to extinction.
They also, just like us, feed their young by pectoral breasts until they
are old enough to get food for themselves. The average life-span of
a bat is similar to ours as well, as they can live up to forty or fifty
years old. The majority of bats could fit in the palm of your hand!
A lot of people have no idea that bats do
not like the cold weather. As soon as the weather changes, a lot of
bats will migrate to South America and while there are some bats that will
simply hibernate until the weather breaks, many bat species migrate and
will fly over a thousand miles in order to get to places that are warm.
The places that you will mainly find a lot
of bat species are in some of the warmest parts of the world. The
tropics are fantastic places for bats to live, not only do that have a lot
of insects and flowers for their food source, but they are also the
perfect climate for these furry little creatures. Mexico, Hawaii and
even California are just a few of the places that many bats can be found.
A great bat fact is one that makes
gardeners and homeowners love them: a single bat can eat up to 600
mosquitoes in just 1 hour! Almost 40% of American bat species are
having a severe decline in populations, for reasons including habitat
loss. Providing bats a bat
house can help build the populations back up of many bat types that
eat crop-damaging insects. Bat houses provide places for bats to roost,
hibernate and raise young, and help make up for the dwindling number of
natural sites available to them due to human development of their usual
habitats.
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