The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
A Bat’s Life
When you’re outside on a summer evening, do you notice bats flying around? Bats are a great help to people. One bat can catch 1,200 insects in an hour! Bats eat many insects that are harmful to humans, such as mosquitoes.
Bats also help humans in other ways. We use bat droppings, or guano (GWAH-no), for fertilizer and to make products such as laundry detergent. Bats pollinate more than 500 species of plants. Scientists are studying how to use bat
saliva, or spit, to make a medicine for people suffering from strokes or heart trouble. Other scientists are using what they learn from bats to develop ways to help blind people get around.
Meet a bat
Bats are mammals*, the same type of animal as humans. They are the only mammals that can fly.
There are about 1,300 species of bats in the world. Bats make up about one-fifth of all mammal species. They live on every continent except Antarctica. Most live in tropical forests throughout the world. About 46 species live in the United States.
Seventy-eight species of bats around the world are endangered or threatened.
Bats like to roost, or sleep, hanging upside down in high, protected places. Bats roost in trees, in buildings, under bridges, and even in the middle of giant spiderwebs.
Safe and quiet caves, such as those in Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, make good bat homes. Thousands of bats hang from the ceilings in the Carlsbad caves.
Experts are not sure why bats sleep upside down. It may be easier for the bats to take flight if they can just drop. Hanging by their feet may allow more bats to crowd together in one area.
Baby bats
Amother bat gives birth while she is hanging by her feet. She has to be very quick so she can catch the baby with her wing as it drops from her body.
Baby bats, or pups, start hanging from the ceiling as soon as they’re born. They need about five to six weeks before they can fly out on their own.
The mother bat goes out at night to feed, but comes back into the cave several times a night to feed her pup. The father bat does not help care for the pup.
Bat facts
You may have heard the expression “Blind as a bat.” But bats are not blind. They actually have very good eyesight.
But bats’ best sense is their hearing. Most bats use sound to find food and dodge objects. This is called echolocation (EH-ko-lo-KAY-shun).
Bats make a high-pitched sound that humans cannot usually hear. This sound speeds through the air until it bounces off an object and comes back to the bat. With this system, bats can fly within a hair’s width of an object without ever touching it. They can identify an object from the shape of the sound waves. They can tell if an object is an enemy or something good to eat.
Bat wingspans range from 6 inches to 6 feet! Their wings are actually their hands. Bats have a hand like people do, with a thumb and fingers. But their fingers are very long. A membrane, or tight skin, stretches between their fingers. This forms the wing.