What Do Bats Eat?

Yum! Fruit Bat Eating Fruit

Out of the 1100 species of bats, 70% feed on insects and small animals, while the rest feed on fruits (frugivores). They play a major and important role in the ecosystem by keep the insect population under control, pollinating flowers and in the dispersal seeds.

While bats are considered evil and as blood drinkers and through the centuries people have believed that bats drink human blood, it is not so. There are a species of bats uncharacteristically called Vampire Bats that feed on the blood of cattle and other animals. However, these bats would never even come close to a human and would always shy away. It is their nature.

Bats fall under two main categories – Megabats (megachiroptera) and Microbats (microchiroptera). Megabats normally grow quite big although there a few of them that are smaller than the microbats. The significance however is that they have extremely well-developed eyes and small ears. So good is their eye sight that they do not depend on echolocation for navigation and finding food. They feed on fruits, nectar and pollen.

Microbats on the other hand are relatively smaller with small eyes and significantly larger ears. They have poor eyesight and hence have to use echolocation or Sonar to find their way around in the dark as well as to find food and locate possible predators. 

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