How Much Do You Know About Bats

Bats are the only true mammals capable of flight. Their wings, which are the anatomical equivalent of a human hand, are made of a thin,hairless membrane that stretches between their long fingers.

Ordinarily, a mammal's life span is related to its size. A field mouse seldom lives beyond a year. A dog is old at 12. The common Little Brown Bat which is smaller than a mouse, can live to be 15 or more! A bat is a nocturnal creature. During the day it sleeps hanging upside down. While asleep, its body temperature drops so it saves energy.

Bats mate in the fall. Infant bats are born in June or July. Most bat species have only one offspring. After mating, males take up bachelor residence and the females roost together. Oftentimes, if you see many bats together in a church steeple or an old barn, you are seeing the females awaiting the birth of their young.

In the United States, there are 35 species of bats and all of them have a diet which consists solely of insects. Just one bat is capable of catching 500 or more mosquito-sized bugs within an hour! Bats do not catch insects in their mouth, but scoop them up in the membrane that stretches between their hind legs, cupping it like a pouch. Then, in full flight, they reach in and eat their catch. We know birds play a major role in controlling dayflying insects, but it is the bat that goes to work at night, consuming such pests as the mosquito, cornborer, cutworm moth and beetles. Imagine! Thirty bats can catch 30,000 bugs in a night. Only chemical pesticides kill more, but unfortunately, there are dangerous and sometimes lethal side effects to the environment.

Bats have highly developed radar and do not fly into people's hair. Nor are they blind. In fact, they have excellent vision. Bats use their vision, but primarily sonar or "echo location" to hunt their insect prey. The bat emits a high pitched sound that bounces off objects and comes back as echoes. This is how he detects insects and avoids obstacles. Scientists say that watt for watt a bat's sonar is a billion times more sensitive and efficient than any radar or sonar device ever invented by man. They continue to study bats to try and unravel their secrets to improve such things as military equipment and navigational aids for the blind.