As promised – this month is BAT FACTS!
Did you know a group of bats is called a ‘colony’? Sometimes they are called a ‘camp of bats’. If they are flying together they can be called a ‘cloud’. A colony may be 10 bats, or over 1,000 bats. The largest colony of bats in the world lives in the Bracken Cave in Texas. Over 15 million Mexican free-tailed bats live in the cave during the summer. They over-winter in Mexico, and Central and South America. To read more about this amazing colony of bats visit batcon.org and read about the Bracken Cave Preserve.
Do you know which animals are a bats biggest predator? I had to look this up after seeing bats fly around, being thankful they eat mosquitos, and wondering if they had any predators. Surely they aren’t the top of the food chain?!? Nope! A bats predators are: owls, hawks, snakes, and sometimes spiders…if the web is built just right, and the bat is a smaller species.
Speaking of bat species, there are 1,400 species of bats worldwide. The largest bats are the flying foxes. They are fruit bats that live on islands in the South Pacific. With a wingspan of up to 6 feet, I don’t mind that I’ll likely never see one of these! Kitti’s hog-nosed bats are the smallest bat in the world, they are about 1 inch in length, and often referred to as the Bumblebee Bat. It is found in Thailand and Myanmar, and is supposedly the world’s smallest mammal (I’ll have to look into this a bit more to confirm!)
Did you know that bats are the only flying mammal? You might think, no, there are flying squirrels, and I’ve read about them in your books. Technically flying squirrels glide using the membrane between their legs to help them, so they are not flying. Bats have wings, and fly.
Baby bats are called pups. Female bats have one pup a year. In a colony of hundreds and or millions of bats, moms can still find their own pups to nurse them. Fascinating! Most bats can live to be 20 years old, only six species have been recorded living up to 30 years old.
Bats can eat THREE TIMES their weight in insects each night. Seems like a lot, but the Indiana Bat only weighs as much as three pennies. Either way, I am thankful for their hunger and insect eating capabilities!!
“Blind as a bat” is a false statement. Their eyes adapt to nocturnal life!
Bats live in caves and trees. They can also live in manmade structures like buildings, under bridges, and in culverts. When hanging out at home, it is called ‘roosting’. The Little Brown Bat can roost for 19 hours a day!
Bats are very important for our ecosystem. They are pollinators, seed dispersers, and pest control. Over 300 types of fruit depend on bats for pollination! Next time you eat fruit, you can likely thank a bat for it. Is your favorite Trick- or- Treat candy chocolate? Thank a bat! Bats pollinate cacao flowers. Bats also eat cacao fruit, and disperse seeds through their um…digestive system. And then more cacao trees grow. If you love chocolate, you should appreciate bats!
I have one final myth to bust before ending this post. Bats are not blood suckers. There are only three species of vampire bats that eat blood to survive, and they live in Central and South America. Three out of 1,400 species worldwide, that’s not very many vampire bats!
I hope you enjoyed these fun bat facts. Don’t forget, you can download 24 bat coloring pages by clicking this link.